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I 



A 



ON 



THE DANGERS 



or 



MODERN SPIRITUALISM. 



WILLIAM B. HAYDE:^', 

MINISTER or THE NEW JERUSALEM AT PORTLAND, MAINB. 



-".J 


FOURTH EDITION, REVISED. 


^/ 






NEW YOKK: 




PUBLISHED BY THE 


NEW 


CHURCH TRACT SOCIETY, 




20 COOPEE UNION. 




1870. 






Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1870, by the 

NEW CHURCH TRACT SOCIETY, 

In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, in "Washington. 



CONTENTS 



LECTURE I. 

The structure of the natural body viewed in its analogies to the spirit — 
the spirit in the human form — the spiritual body dwells within the 
natural body, and at death is evolved from it — the resurrection — 
Paul's doctrine — the spiritual senses of men — their occasional 
opening — the seers and prophets of the Old Testament — and 
those of the New Testament — a peculiarity of the new dispensa- 
tion ; . Page 5 to 30. 



LECTURE II. 

The first, second, and third state of spirits after death — the capacity 
which spirits possess of communicating with men — these commu- 
nications proceed neither from heaven nor from hell, but from the 
.world of spirits, intermediate between heaven and hell — spirits 
of some kind constantly associated with men — various modes in 
which spirits operate upon men — proofs of the existence of familiar 
intercourse with spirits in ancient times — among the heathen — 
among the Jews — case of Saul and the witch of Endor — proofs 
of an intermediate state which is neither heaven nor hell — such 
intercourse forbidden to the Jews. . • . Page 31 to 54. 



LECTURE III. 

Importance of the doctrine of a future life — revelation progressive — 
the Old Testament — the New Testament — reasons for expecting 
further divine revelations — difference betAveen the disclosures of 
spiritualism and those of the New Church — some prominent char • 
acteristics of the alleged spiritual manifestations — the New 
Jerusalem a system of divinely accorded spiritual truth for the 

times Page 55 to 79. 

. (3) 



CONTENTS. 



LECTURE IV. 

The superiority of Swedenborg's claim prima facie evidence in favor of 
the superiority of his mission — Swedenborg a true seer — his man- 
ifold advantages in this respect — his disclosures form a system, 
compact and homogeneous — those of spiritualism do not — the 
unparalleled extent of his revelations — he forestalls and forestates 
the phenomena of spiritualism — extracts from his writings — these 
disclosures one hundred years in advance of the modern phenomena 
— the two spiritual ways — the law of spiritual progression — op- 
erates in two contrary directions. , . • Page 80 to 112. 



LECTURE V. 

Kecapitulation — the contents of the New Jerusalem revelation based 
on the sacred Scripture — something concerning the Scriptures, the 
style in which they are written, their inspiration, the manner in 
which they are to be understood — revelation of its internal sense 
— meaning of the white horse — the literal sense not impaired by 
the spiritual — some misconceptions mentioned — the literal sense 
needs to be explained — methods in which previous divine revela- 
tions have been made explained in the New Church writings — lastly, 
the moral quality of this revelation—- conclusion. Page 113 to 137. 



LECTURE I. 



THE DOCTKINE OF KESUKKECTION, THE SPIRITUAL WORLD, 
AIsD THE OPENING OF MAN's INTERIOR SENSES. 



" And I John saw these things, and heard them. And when I had 
heard and seen, I fell down to worship before the feet of the angel which 
showed me these things. Then saith he unto me. See thou do it not : 
for I am thy fellow-servant, and of thy brethren the prophets, and of 
them which keep the sayings of this book : worship God." — Rev. 
xxii. 8, 9. 

*' For I am fearfully and wonderfully made." — Psalm cxxxix. 14. 



If the osseous or bony structure of the human 
frame be separated from the other parts of the body 
and held out before the view by itself alone, it will 
present to the eye the rude image of a man. It is in 
the human form, not indeed complete and full, but 
correct as far as it goes. It forms a skeleton which is 
distinctly human ; no single bone of it is exactly such 
as would enter into the structure of any other created 
being. The first and obvious idea which the sight of 
it suggests to the mind is that of a man. 

If, now> we take the system of tissues which is 
next above that, namely, the muscular system, which 
immediately clothes that of the bony frame, and sepa- 
rate thxt in like manner from the rest of the body, 
1 * (5) 



6 MODERN SPIRITUALISM. 

holding it up to \iew, we shall then have presented 
to us a form yet more fully human than the other, and 
one which more nearly resembles the perfect body of 
a man. Still it will be exceedingly defective, and 
wholly wanting in that rounded fulness of contour 
which characterizes the living human shape. 

If, again, we take either one of the two parts of 
the great vascular system of the body, that is, the 
arterial or the venous system, and treat it in a similar 
manner, a similar result will follow, and a human 
form will be exhibited which, though still defective, 
will approach nearer to completeness. 

But if instead of any of the others we select the 
cerebro-spinal axis, as it is called, — that is, the 
brain and nervous system, — as the subject of our ex- 
periment, a somewhat different effect will be pi?duced. 
The form thus presented will be found to be far more 
perfect than either of the others. And if every rami- 
fication, and reticulation, and fibre of the nerves be 
fuithfully preserved the image will be complete ; the 
eye on beholding it would be deceived ; and so per- 
fect would be the representation of all the parts that, 
until further examination were made, we should sup- 
pose that an entire man stood before us. 

Thus we find that our bodily system consists of a 
series of human forms, woven together and interlaced 
through each other — one form clothing another, and 
one form supporting another. If we stop to contem- 
plate the combination of these different forms in 
another aspect, we shall discover that there is a cer- 
tain successive order in the mode of their arrange- 
ment, and in the degree in which they are capable 
of manifesting the human form. The most gross, 
Bolidj or earthy parts are capable of manifesting it 



HUMAN FORMS IN THE BODY. 7 

least ; while as we ascend into the more refined, the 
softer and fleshy parts, we perceive that they gradu- 
ally approach it more nearly ; and when we come to 
the most complex, the most highly organized, and the 
most thoroughly vitalized of all the parts, we find 
that they are the most completely of all in the human 
form. 

The mind acts the most directly or immediately 
upon the brain and its appendages — that is, upon 
the nervous system. Through this it acts upon the 
vascular and muscular systems, and through these, 
again, upon the osseous system or bony skeleton. 

Thus the order of influx by which the soul operates 
upon and moves the body is from above downwards 
— from things more pure to things less pure ; from 
tissues which are more highly organized to those 
which are less highly organized; from parts which 
are less gross to those which are more gross ; from 
structures that are less solid to those which are more 
solid ; and from systems which are more perfectly in 
the human form continuously downward into systems 
that are less perfectly so. 

In examining the body, therefore, the farther we 
recede from the soul, the farther do we recede from 
the human form ; while the higher we ascend towards 
the soul, the more nearly do we approach to a perfect 
human form. 

The cause or reason of this must, we conceive, to 
the reflecting mind, appear sufficiently obvious. It is 
because the soul itself, or inmost principle of man, is 
in the human form. 

Nor does the ascending analogy stop with the 
merely outward constitution. The body of the spirit, 
which is that next above the brain and nervous system. 



8 MODERN SPIRITUALISM. 

is still more perfectly human in all its forms and func* 
tions than the whole material body, with all its com- 
binations and parts. As the nervous system itself;, 
with all the grosser parts of the body taken out from 
it, still presents the human form entire, so the spirit, 
with all the gross things of the material body taken 
out from it, still presents the same form entire. 

It is this indwelling spiritual body that imparts the 
form and gives consistency to the external one ; and 
as each successive system of parts in the- natural body 
requires one next below it, most like itself in organi- 
zation and form, into which to flow and to operate, so 
the more exquisite and invisible spiritual body requires 
something next below it, most nearly resembling itself 
in fineness of texture and fulness of form into which 
it can flow, so as to operate upon what is ber<^ath it. 
And it is because this indwelling body is so perfectly 
in the human form that it requires so perfectly organ- 
ized a nervous system as its first receptacle in the 
physical body, for it to insert itself into, to act upon, 
and to operate through. 

During our life in this world the soul weaves for 
itself a spiritual body, which pervades and fills with 
life every portion of the material body; and when 
the material body is laid aside, this spiritual body 
serves as the perpetual investment of the spirit in the 
other life. 

Thus the soul is not a simple substance, — a mere 
abstract thinking principle, — as is so * frequently 
yrgued, but a complicated organization. Like the 
body, it has its multitude of parts, its variety of 
organs, its change and flux of constituent elements. 
Every mental affection we experience is the indica- 
tion of a change taking place in the substances which 



ST. Paul's doctrine. 9 

compose the spirit. Every thought we think, e very- 
emotion we feel, every act of the will, and each 
secret intent of the heart, is instantly and indelibly 
daguerreotyped upon the receptive components of the 
spirit, and is f^iithfully recorded upon its immortal 
tissues, remaining ever after an integrant part of its 
own being, to go whithersoever it goes and to live 
where it lives. 

The apostle Paul says, in the fifteenth chapter of 
the First of Corinthians, " There is a natural body, 
and there is a spiritual body." He does not say there 
is now a natural body, and there will be a spiritual 
body at the resurrection. He speaks of them both 
in the present tense ; of both as then existing to- 
gether ; of the latter as being as much a present real- 
ity at that time as the former. 

Again he says, " There are bodies celestial, and 
bodies terrestrial; but the glory of the terrestrial is 
one, and the glory of the celestial is another." Now, 
this is contrary to the common idea, which supposes 
that. the departed spirits of men have no bodies, and 
that they will get no celestial or spiritual bodies until 
a future resurrection at the end of the world. But 
the apostle speaks of celestial bodies as present reali- 
ties, coexisting with terrestrial ones, while differing 
from them in composition and quality. 

So, too, the similitude which in this same chapter 
the apostle uses to set forth and illustrate the resur- 
rection, or the process by which the spirit is raised up 
into another life, cannot be made to harmonize with 
the common popular doctrine of the resurrection in 
any one of its particulars. He likens it to the btalk 
of grain growing up from the seed when dropped 
into the ground. Now, the living geim which con- 



10 MODERN SPIRITUALISM. 

stitntes the life of that seed does not, when the seed 
is put into the ground, withdraw itself from the seed, 
leaving it to die and rot, and then go off, without any 
hody or form, into an intermediate state, remain there> 
sejDarated from it, for an indefinite period of centuries, 
or years, or even weeks, and then coming back, not 
to the old seed, but to a new stalk or blade, ready 
made for it and put into the ground, enter into that, 
and fill it with life ; neither does it reenter the old 
seed. vSuch is not the process ; and there is not the 
least analogy between the doctrine of the resurrec- 
tion of the body, as it is commonly taught, and the 
process in nature to which the apostle refers as repre- 
senting and illustrating that which takes place with 
the spirit of man ; while, on the other hand, that 
process does offer a most exact representation of the 
resurrection of the soul, as described in the writings 
of the New Church, and hardly any comparison can 
be found that would explain it to the apprehension 
more clearly. 

The resurrection of every person takes place imme- 
diately after death ; that is, as soon as the natural 
body is no longer capable of performing the functions 
for which and by means of which it is connected with 
the spirit, the body then drops off from the soul, and 
the spirit rises up into its own proper life. V/hen 
the action of the lungs fully ceases, and the motion 
of tiie material heart comes entirely to an end, the 
spiritual body is drawn forth from the natural body, 
and the man rises, in complete human form, at once 
into the life and among the inhabitants of the spirit- 
ual world. 

Now, observe the exact correspondence or analogy 
there is between ill 's process of resurrection and that 



EVOLUTION OF THE SPIRITUAL BODY. 11 

of the growth of grain. The seed is dropped in^o 
the ground, and the hard shell or covering, of the 
seed, that is, the body of it, perishes, and is dropped 
off; while the internal of the seed, that is, its very- 
life and soul, expands itself, bursts its solid shell or 
covering, breaks forth into a new existence, and in a 
body proper to and peculiar to itself, evolved from the 
old one, rises above the clods into new light and life. 
The seed itself contained all this new body and new 
life within it, as a germ or form. 

Even so it is with the future life of man. His 
natural body is the very seed, shell, or outward cover- 
ing, in which his spiritual body is contained, and out 
of which it rises into the light and life of the spirit- 
ual world whenever his natural body is laid in the 
ground ; and as the grain never again resumes its old, 
cast-off body, so neither does the departed or risen 
spirit of man ever return to his. 

Thus it is that through a natural process which in- 
volves the apparent death of the seed, we arrive at 
the full and genuine development of the life of the 
grain. And in like manner, also, a man, by laying 
aside the natural body, by that very means assumes at 
once and forever the spiritual body ; on leaving the 
natural v/orld, enters at once into the world of de- 
parted spirits ; and by a process which we call death, 
leaves what is mortal forever behind him and is raised 
up into eternal life. The man then finds that he has 
a body, head, limbs, hands, feet, a mouth, and eyes, 
and ears, as before. He has organs of respiration, 
and all the internal viscera of the body are the same ; 
only now they are composed of spiritual substances 
alone, and have not that crass, material covering, or 
investment, which were adjoined to them in thin world. 



12 MODERN SPIEITUALIS;^^. 

In short, the man discovers that he has lost nothing 
of himself whatsoever — that he has left nothing be- 
hind him, save only those few particles of the four 
chemical elements in which his organs had been hith- 
erto incased. His entire organization remains still the 
same, and he is a man in complete form as before. 
His external aspect is unchanged, so that those who 
had known him in the life of the natural body would, 
if their eyes could perceive him, be still able to recog- 
nize him as readily as of old. 

It may be difficult for some, accustomed to the cur- 
rent modes of metaphysical thinking, to conceive of a 
spirit as having a form, or to conceive of any form 
independent of crude, palpable matter ; when the 
truth is, that matter, of itself, has no definite or deter- 
minate form, and is incapable of assuming any, except 
as it is acted upon and moved by some force superior 
to and beyond itself. The outward body is held in 
the particular form which it takes and exhibits by the 
vital forces of the spirit. And it is because the forms 
of the organs all exist in the spiritual body within, 
that the various particles which are derived into the 
material body from our food, arrange themselves into 
these several shapes. It is plain that the body is in 
the form of the vital forces which animate it, and 
these vital forces are spiritual, constituting the body 
of the spirit ; and these vital forces remain the same, 
and continue their action, whether particles of matter 
are given them to act upon or not. 

For instance : a whirlwind is a particular form of 
motion in the air ; but a pwre whirlwind is totally in- 
visible to us ; that is, when there is nothing but air in 
motion we do not see it ; but when it has picked up 
from the earth a parcel of leaves, dust, or papers, and 



ANALOGIES OF TFIE SriEITUAL BODY. 13 

arranged them into Its own shape, bearing them along 
in its progress, — thus taking on as it were a material 
body, — it becomes visible to our eyes and we call it 
a whirlwind. When the same form of aerial motion 
descends upon the ocean, and hurriedly and majesti- 
cally wraps itself in a body composed of water drops 
from the sea, we call it a waterspout. But it soon 
drops this water body, and hies away, perchance, to 
the desert, where it as hastily takes up the particles 
of sand, swiftly arranges them into the gigantic pro- 
portions of its own form, and stalks off majestically 
over the burning plains enrobed in a complete mate- 
rial body. But as soon as it drops out from its folds 
the particles of water or the particles of sand, it 
straightway becomes invisible again, and we cannot 
tell whence it cometh or whither it goeth. 

So it is with every one who has dropped out the 
material particles of his physical body from the folds 
of his spirit — the man is still there, but he is invisi- 
ble to us. 

As the spiritual body possesses all the organs and 
parts which the natural body possesses, so it performs 
functions corresponding to those which the natural 
body performs. Our outward bodies are fitted to act 
in, and to be acted upon by, the substances of the 
natural world, while our interior bodies are corre- 
spondingly fitted to act in, and to be acted upon by, 
the substances of the spiritual world. 

It is the spiritual body here which really performs 
every function. For behind the material apparatus of 
the eye there is a spiritual eye, that does all the see- 
ing — looking out through its nice arrangement of 
humors and lenses as a man looks out through a window 
or a telescope. And behind the material apparatua 
2 ' 



14 MODERN spiritualism:. 

'which constitutes the outward ear there is a spiritual 
ear, which does all the hearing. The same is true 
of the other human senses and functions. As long as 
they are covered with the material organs they are 
capable of perceiving material things, of acting upon 
them, and of being acted upon by them. When the 
material organs are removed, these interior senses 
then become capable of perceiving and acting upon 
things which are uncovered like themselves — that is, 
spiritual things, the objective existences of the spirit- 
ual world. 

It will probably strike the minds of many who 
have not given the subject much consideration very 
singularly, that it should be asserted that there are 
in the invisible world a great variety of outward ob- 
jects for the eye to rest upon, as there are in this 
world. The idea that there are in heaven, and in 
other parts of the spiritual world, trees, gardens, 
fields, vineyards, houses, palaces, cities, uses, employ- 
ments, books, utensils, and implements and instru- 
ments of all kinds, and that the outward aspect of 
men and things which meets the eye there is highly 
similar, in many important respects, to that which 
meets the eye here, will no doubt appear exceedingly 
fanciful — a poetical conceit of the imagination, not 
to be indulged in or believed by sober-minded or sen- 
sible men. But a little patient thinking in regard to 
the matter will, we feel assured, serve to do away 
with this first hasty conclusion. 

In the first place, let each one fairly settle in his 
own mind whether he does really believe, firmly and 
surely, that the spirit exists at all after it leaves the 
body. We afiirm that it does, and on that assumj • 
tion base our subsequent conclusions. In the nei . 



SENSE TERCEPTIONS IN THE FUTURE LIFE. 15 

place, let each one decide for himself whether the 
immortal spirit comes into the future state of its exist- 
ence deaf, dumb, blind, and insensible to touch — 
without sensational feeling ; and if that is the kind 
of immortality to which we are all hastening — an 
eternity of imprisonment within the single bounds of 
our own consciousness, forever dark and lone, shut up 
from all outward objects, and from all intercourse with 
our fellows. Would any care to seek or live for such 
an immortality as that ? If such a view be not the 
true one, — and we affirm that it is not, and the com- 
mon sentiment of Christendom responds to the same, 
— then the spirit in that state must be endowed with 
the various faculties pertaining to men ; he must be 
able to see, hear, speak ; to feel, touch, and handle. 
And if a spirit can see, he must have an organ of 
vision — something to see with — which is an eye ; 
if he can hear, he must have something to hear with, 
which is an ear ; if he is not dumb, but can speak, he 
must have an organ for the utterance of speech ; we 
all know what that is ; if he can touch, feel, and 
handle, he must have cuticular sensation, and hands 
to touch and handle with ; if the departed saint can 
go at once to walk the streets of the heavenly city, 
he must be provided with feet, or he will be unable 
to walk in that other life. 

Now, let each one reflect within himself upon that 
world in which the spirit goes to live when he is 
w^ithdrawn from the body, having, as Ave have seen, 
eyes and the faculty of seeing, ears and the faculty 
of hearing, a mouth and the power of speech, hands 
and the sense of touch. 

Is that world totally without contents ? Is there 
no object there for the eye to see, no sound for the 



16 MODERN SPIRITUALISM. 

ear to hear, no language for the mouth to utter, no 
articles or instruments for the hands to handle? Is 
that world all one vast, hleak, blank emptiness ? Has 
God created a heaven of angels, or a spiritual world, 
with nothing in it ? Such a world certainly would fall 
very far short of being an object of desire, and the 
people of God could look forward to it with none of 
the earnest enthusiasm of fervent hope. But such a 
spiritual world is not only altogether inadequate to 
satisfy the religious consciousness of mankind, it is 
also wholly unscrlpturah Every reference made to 
heaven and the spiritual world in the sacred writings 
speaks of them and shows them as being a state of 
existence which is filled with external objects to be 
seen and heard. Some of the relations in regard to 
that other life which occur in the Bible describe 
scenes the most magnificent and grand. The multi- 
tude of the things spoken of, and the minuteness with 
which they are described in the writings of the New 
Jerusalem, find an abundant warrant and confirmation 
in the books of the ancient prophets. St. John, in 
the Apocalypse, says, " After this I looked, and, be- 
hold, a door was opened in heaven ; " and he immedi- 
ately proceeds to give an account of things which 
he saw there. Among them are mentioned a throne, 
a rainbow, seven lamps burning, four and twenty seats 
around the throne, and elders sitting, clothed in rai- 
ment, a sea of glass, a book sealed with seven seals, 
golden vials full of odors, and an innumerable multi- 
tude of other things, which every reader of the Scrip- 
tures will spontaneously call to mind. The whole 
apocalyptic vision is a record of things actually heard 
and seen by the apostle in heaven, or in the world of 
spirits. Similar are all the accounts given of the 



OBJECTIVE EXISTENCES IN THE OTHER WORLD. 17 

Other state of existence by the prophets of the Old 
Testament. They, whenever their eyes were opened, 
all saw and heard a multitude of things which had an 
objective and real existence in the worlds of departed 
spirits. Many of the objects and scenes that are de- 
scribed by them are such as might be seen or might 
occur in this world; while many others are such as 
could never occur here, but are peculiarities of the 
other life. The books of the prophets Ezeidel and 
Daniel may be mentioned as containing the most 
striking or remarkable relations of this kind. 

It must be clear to every one who will give him- 
self the trouble to reflect upon it, that if there is any 
thing — if only a single object — in the spiritual 
world, then there can be no possible reason why there 
are not innumerable things there. If there is a sub- 
stance in that other world of which a single object 
may be composed, or out of which a single thing may 
be constructed — no matter whether that object be 
the united parts of a human form, a covering of rai- 
ment, a throne, a golden candlestick, an altar of in- 
cense, a temple for worship, or the harp of a seraph 
— if any of these can come into being there, and be 
exhibited to view, and handled, and made use of, then 
the same substance which serves to compose them can 
serve also to compose any other article, instrument, 
utensil, or thing, which spirits may choose and have 
the ability to construct. 

And spirits are men ; and there is no reason to 
expect or believe that the inventive genius or the 
constructive faculties of the human mind will be 
diminished in consequence of its translation to a 
higher state of existence. There is no logical stop- 
ping-place between. We must either allow the spirit- 
2* 



18 MODERN SPIKITTJAIJSM. 

ual world to be filled with the forms of a great variety 
of objects — places of abode, articles of clothing, 
every implement of use which the inventive genius 
of man can contrive, and all the subiimer beauties 
which the creations of nature can exhibit — and give 
them a real, definite, and substantial existence, as is 
done in the writings of the New Church, or else we 
must take the other extreme, deprive man of those 
faculties by which he communicates with what is 
around him when he enters the other life, and sub- 
tract, one after another, all the forms and scenery 
which fill that world, until finally there is left — noth- 
ing in it ; and a world without any contents or con- 
stituent substances is a no-world, and becomes at once 
non-extant. 

The faculty, therefore, of perceiving and being 
acted upon by the existences of the world of spirits is 
innate or natural with every man ; and although the 
interior senses, that is, the faculties of spiritual see- 
ing, and spiritual hearing, and spiritual touching, are 
not usually developed or brought into exercise so long 
as the material body is retained, (or while we live in 
this world,) yet they are sometimes brought into exer- 
cise before departure ; and men, while they still live 
here in the natural world, are occasionally brought 
into a condition in which they can see, and hear, and 
touch the men and the things which exist in the other 
life ; for that other world is not far off from us, as 
many suppose — a great way removed, located some- 
where in outward space, among the stars or on the 
planets — but is here, every where near us and around 
us ; and it is only because we are not in sensible com- 
munication with its inhabitants, because it is far dis- 
tant from our affections^ and really far removed from 



OPEN VISION IN ALL AGES. 



19 



our belief, that it seems to be so far distant from us 
in space. While from inadequate conceptions of the 
real substantiality of pure spirit, joined to material 
ideas of man's spiritual body, some modern philos- 
ophers are driven to the peopling of the far off astro- 
nomical worlds with the spirits of the departed. If 
a sensible communication with the beings of the other 
life were opened to us, this false appearance of re- 
moteness would be dispelled, and we should come to 
perceive and realize that the beings of that world 
were, in truth, very near to us, and that they were 
living and moving every where among us. 

Such sensible perception, as we have said, has been 
enjoyed or been at times exercised by multitudes of 
persons, in various countries and in different ages of 
the world. It is through the medium of such a pre- 
mature exercise of the spiritual senses of some man 
or men, that divine revelations have been communi- 
cated to mankind. For the purpose of effecting these 
revelations, the senses of those men were providen- 
tially and preternaturally (or unusually) opened at the 
time, and when the communication intended to be 
made was finished, they returned into their ordinary 
state, and that closed up the vision or brought it to 
an end. 

In the case of St. John, in the Isle of Patmos, this 
opening of his internal sight is expressed by saying, 
'* After this, I looked, and behold a door was opened 
in heaven." It is differently expressed in relation to 
the cases of the different prophets and revelators of 
the Old Testament, but is called, in the more ancient 
records, open vision, or open sight ; by which it was 
intended to convey the idea that the men who enjoyed 
the gift of this sight, could look into the world of 



20 MODERN SPIEITUALISM. 

departed spirits, and behold persons and things which 
were invisible to other people. Hence, in the very- 
early times, when, both from tradition and the fre- 
quency of its occurrence, the matter was better un- 
derstood than in later days, such men were palled 
seers, or men who had their eyes open. Thus we 
read in the ninth chapter, ninth verse, of the first book 
of Samuel, where the servant of Saul advises him to 
consult the man of God which is in the city. *^ Be- 
foretime in Israel, when a man ivent to inquire of 
God, thus he spake : Come, and let us go to the 
SEER ; for he that is now called a prophet was 5e- 
foretime called a seer." And as they went on to 
the city where the man of God was, it is related 
that they met young maidens coming out to draw 
water, and they asked them, saying, " Is the seer 
here ? " , 

And so again, in the twenty -fourth chapter of the 
book of Numbers, occur the following words : " And 
the spirit of God came upon Balaam, and he took up 
his parable and said, Balaam the son of Beor hath 
said : he hath said which heard the words of God, 
which saw the vision of the Almighty, falling into a 
trance, but having his eyes open." After which fol- 
lows the prophecy that he uttered. 

And again, in another part of the same chapter, we 
read, further : " And he took up his parable and said, 
Balaam the son of Beor hath said, and the man whose 
eyes were open hath said ; he hath said which heard 
the words of God, and knew the knowledge of the 
Most High; which saw the vision of the Almighty, 
falling into a trance, but having his eyes open." 
Then follow again the words of another prophecy. 

From this we learn that Balaam^ although not an 



OPEN SIGHT OF THE PROPHETS. 21 

Israelite, and though a priest of what, to the Israelites, 
was a false religion, was, nevertheless, a true seer, and 
one whom the Lord on that occasion made use of for 
the utterance of a divine prophecy. 

And we learn further, from this and other similar 
statements in different parts of the Scriptures, that 
the way in which the seers, the prophets, and re vela- 
tors were enabled to look into the other world, and 
behold thus the scenes there, to hear the sounds 
uttered there, and to report over to the inhabitants 
of this world the things which they heard and saw, 
was by the opening of their interior or spiritual 
senses. 

Thus, when Abraham, Lot, Jacob, Elisha, Ezekiel, 
the women at the sepulchre of our Lord, the disciples 
on the mount of transfiguration, and at the time of 
the Lord's ascension, saw, heard, and conversed with 
angels and the spirits of departed men, they did so 
by virtue of the opening within themselves of the 
spiritual senses of seeing and hearing. The change 
wrought was in themselves, and not in the beings who 
appeared to them. The spirits or angels did not come 
to them from a great distance, and suddenly assume a 
body for the purpose of rtendering themselves visible, 
and then put off the form again when they vanished. 

The vanishing was caused by the closing up of the 
spiritual senses, and the return of the person to his 
ordinary state. So, when the angels appeared to the 
shepherds in the plain, announcing to them the birth 
of the infant Savior, they appeared by virtue of the 
opening of the spiritual senses in the shepherds ; and 
when they went away again into heaven, the going 
was an apparent one, caused by the gradual closing uj) 
of the spiritual senses of the shepherds. 



23 MODERN SPIEITUALISM, 

The common doctrine on this subject seems to us 
as crude and as unscriptural as that in relation to the 
resurrection of the material body. The theory which 
is generally entertained as Christian doctrine is, that 
the angels and the souls or spirits of men have no 
distinctive forms whatever ,• that they live some- 
where in the material universe, at an inconceivable 
distance from the earth, and that when they have 
been seen by men, they have flown hither from that 
distance and momentarily assumed natural bodies, 
thus rendering themselves visible to the natural eyes 
of those to whom they appeared ; that when they 
disappeared fi'om the eyes of the men, they dropped 
those natural human forms, and returned into their 
former unformed or no-formed condition. We do 
not give this as the universal, but only as a very 
general belief. 

If the angels and spirits who have appeared to men 
did so by the assumption, for the occasion, of natural 
forms not usually belonging to them, and disappeared 
again by virtue of laying aside or putting off those 
natural human forms, then we ask. Ought not, and 
would not, those rejected or cast-off forms be found 
in the spot wliere the angei or spirit vanished ? If 
they were forms visible to the natural eye, then the 
natural eye would continue to discern them after the 
spirit had left them. If the angel who wrestled with 
Jacob had vanished from him by virtue of putting off 
a natural form, would Jacob not have seen the castroff 
form as a dead body on the ground before him ? If 
the angel who appeared to Zachariah in the temple, 
foretelling the birth of John the Baptist, had disap- 
peared by such a process, would not tiie rejected body 
have been subsequently discovered in the temple? 



ANGELS NEVEE TAKE MATEKIAL BODIES. 23 

And if the angel who appeared to Manoah and his 
wife, announcing prophetically the birth of Samson, 
and disappeared from them by going up in the flame 
of the fire, had done so by dropping off a form vis- 
ible to the natural eye, would not that rejected form 
have been seen by them as a dead body falling back 
into the fire ? 

No such forms have ever been discovered or seen, 
and may we not conclude, therefore, that the supposi- 
tion that such was the mode of their appearance and 
disappearance is wholly gratuitous and erroneous ? 

But our chief allegation against the theory in 
question is, that it is altogether contrary to the uni- 
form teaching of the Scriptures to assume that angels 
and departed spirits are without form ; that they are 
by their own nature and essence in any other than the 
human form, or that they in any way change their 
forms when they appear to men. Not a single hint 
of any thing of the kind which this theory supposes 
occurs any where in Scripture ; on the other hand, the 
very opposite view is every where maintained. The 
appearing spirits and angels are on every occasion 
represented as being most perfectly in the human 
form. That is referred to as beinsc their normal 
form, the one constantly belonging to them. They 
are almost always at first mistaken by the beholders 
for men, and in the written accounts are called men 
as often as any thing else. Thus it is said of the case 
of Jacob, that a man wrestled with him until the 
morning. Manoah called the angel which appeared 
to him a man ; and the angel which showed all the 
wonders of the Revelation to John is called a man ; 
and at the close, the angel told him that he was 
one of John's own brethren the prophets ; hence. 



24 MODERN spiritualism:. 

that he had once been a man, and lived on this 
earth. 

Thus the effect of the descriptions given in the 
Bible is to convey the idea that both angels and 
spirits are men, who, having passed out of their ma- 
terial bodies, have risen up in their spiritual bodies, 
and are now living in the spiritual world ; and that 
they may at any time become visible to us by the 
opening of our interior sight. 

The very expression used in regard to the men 
who saw those things, that they had their eyes open, 
shows that their power of seeing was in a different 
condition from that of other men, and from that of 
their own at other times. Their natural eyes could 
not have been referred to, for all the other persons 
concerned had those open, and it is clear that no such 
mode of speaking would occur in the Scriptures in 
regard to our ordinary state of natural vision. The 
form of words, too, so frequently occurring, that such 
and such things were seen or heard in msio7i, c\q^y\j 
enough implies that they were not heard and seen in 
the person's ordinary state. 

Besides this, the circumstances related to have taken 
place on various occasions where open vision occurred 
unmistakably show that the change by which the spir- 
itual beings became visible was one that took place in 
the perceptions of the men themselves. In order to 
make this point unquestionably clear, as being the 
uniform teaching throughout all parts of the sacred 
writings, we will select only a single instance in illus- 
tration, from each of the three great divisions of the 
Bible — one from the historical part of the Old Tes- 
tament, one from the prophetical part, and one from 
the apostolical writings of the New. 



CASES OP ELISHA, DANIEL, AND PAUL. ^ 25 

The first instance we shall refer to is that of the 
young man with the prophet Ellsha, recorded in the 
sixth chapter of the second book of Kings. The 
prophet, who was a seer, and had, consequently, his 
spiritual eyes open, saw, in the world of spirits, the 
mountain over against them full of horsemen and 
chariots. But the boy, in his natural state of vision 
did not see them. But Elisha prayed, and said. Lord 
open thou the eyes of the young man. And the Lord 
opened the eyes of the young man, and then he also 
saw the mountain covered in like manner. Here it is 
distinctly stated that the way in which these spiritual 
beings became visible to the young man was by an 
opening of eyes in him which were not open in his 
ordinary state of natural seeing. 

The second instance we shall cite is from the book 
of the prophet Daniel. It is sufficient that we quote 
the words as recorded in the tenth chapter and seventh 
verse. After describing the man or angel who ap- 
peared to him, he says, "And I Daniel alone saw the 
vision : for the men that were with me saw not the 
vision; but a great quaking fell upon them, so that 
they ran to hide themselves.^'' 

Now, if the angel here had assumed a form visible 
to the natural eye, he would have been just as visible 
to the men who were with Daniel as he was to Daniel 
himself. But it is because angels are not visible to 
the natural eye that the men saw him not ; and it is 
because they are visible to the interior eye, and be- 
cause Daniel had these eyes open in him, and the 
men had not, that he alone saw the vision. 

The third and last instance to which we shall refer 
is that of St. Paul and the men who were with him, 
recorded in the book of Acts. 



20 MODERN SPIRITUALISM. 

The apostle relates that the Lord Jesus Chnst ap- 
peared to him, and gave him a call and a commission 
to preach the gospel. He saw, also, a great light 
from heaven shining round about him. But we read 
that the men who were with Paul saw no light, nor 
any man. This shows conclusively that their power 
of seeing was not in the same condition that his was, 
and that what he saw he saAV by virtue of having at 
the moment developed in him a power of seeing dif- 
ferent from theirs, and different from his own in his 
ordinary state ', otherwise the men with him would 
have seen whatsoever he saw. 

We presume we have adduced evidence enough 
from the Scriptures to show clearly and conclusively 
that spirit seeing is a power or faculty developed or 
brought into exercise within man himself. This also 
accords with all our other experience ; for the world 
has not been in any age without its witnesses to ap- 
pearances of this kind. Innumerable well-authenti- 
cated cases are on record in which the spirits of the 
departed have been seen by those still in the mortal 
body. 

How many instances occur of persons who, on the 
near approach of death, are favored with a view of 
that world into which they are about to enter — see- 
ing the persons, and sometimes hearing the music, 
which pertain to the spheres of the other life ! Such 
was the case with the martyr Stephen, w^hen stoned to 
death, as it is told in the book of Acts ; and there is 
scarcely any one in the community who has not> had 
instances of the kind come within the circle of his 
acquaintance, or even within that of his own observa- 
tion and knowledge. The vision in these cases most 
usually is of some near and dear friend or friends 



CASE OP SAMFEL, WITH ELI. 27 

of the person, who have departed from this world 
before him. 

These instances also go to show that it is not with 
the natural eye that such things are seen ; for the 
friends gathoied about the bedside of the departing 
one see not the faces, nor do they hear the voices, of 
those spiritual beings whose presence then fills the 
room. 

Persons may sometimes have one of their spiritual 
senses opened, while the others remain closed. Thus 
one may come into a state in which he will be able to 
hear spirits, without being able to see them ; or he 
may both see and hear, without being able to feel 
their touch ; and some may feel their touch, without 
either hearing or seeing them. 

Thus the prophet Samuel, while he was yet a boy 
in the temple, wdth Eli the priest, heard a voice speak- 
ing to him, and calling out, Samuel ! Samuel ! but saw 
no one, and ran to Eli, supposing that he had called 
him. In that case his spiritual hettring only was 
opened. It was the same with the men already re- 
ferred to, who were in company with St. Paul. Their 
spiritual hearing only was opened ; for they, too, 
heard a voice, but saw nothing. 

In the case of Jacob wrestling with the angel there 
must have been an opening of all three of the princi- 
pal spiritual senses ; for he not only saw and heard, 
but also manifestly touched him. There are also a 
number .of other cases recorded in the Scriptures, 
where the sense of spiritual touch was opened ; but 
further illustrations of this point need not now be 
cited. 

It seems to have been a general rule in the divine 
providential economy by which the developments of 



28 MOl^ERX SnmTlTALISM. 

the Jewish and early Christian churches were carried 
on, that there should be, nearly all the time, some one 
who enjoyed the gift of spiritual seership, and that 
the communication between the spiritual and natural 
worlds should be thus kept open. There is sometimes 
an appearance as though it was deemed highly impor- 
tant to tho moral well being of the people that, by the 
presence of some such continuous chain of facts as 
those visions would afford, they should be constantly 
reminded that there is a spiritual world, and a spirit- 
ual existence and power which are above nature. 
We read in one place, in the book of Proverbs, that 
*' where no vision is, the people perish ; " therefore wo 
find that from the call of Abraham down through 
Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph — after that, through Moses, 
Aaron, and Joshua — and, lastly, through Samuel, 
Elijah, Elisha, and all the subsequent prophets — 
there was kept up a succession of seers, or revelators, 
who possessed the gift of open vision into the world 
of spirits, and who, therefore, could receive communi- 
cations from the inhabitants of that world, and make 
them known to those of this world. This line of 
succession was indeed frequently interrupted, and 
sometimes the break extended over a considerable 
period. But the interruption was regarded as a proper 
source of regret, and as a circumstance in some sense 
worthy to be deplored. In the days of the judges 
there seems to have been a time when its suspension 
was longer than usual ; for in a certain place in the 
first book of Samuel* we read that ihe word of the 
Lord was precious in those days, (for) there ivas no 

OPEN VISION. 

• 1 Sam. iii. 1. 



THESE VIEWS BASED ON THE BIBLE, 29 

Thus far we have endeavored to show the method 
in which divine revelations have been communicated 
to men; and therefore have confined our attention 
chiefly to the scriptural accounts. From this we do 
not intend to have it inferred that therefore all com- 
munications made from the spiritual world are divine 
in their character, or that they all come from angels 
or good spirits. On another occasion it will be our 
design to take up another branch of the subject, and 
show the various sources from which revelations from 
the other world may come ; and with a single other 
remark we shall now close this portion of our subject. 

It will have been seen that our arguments for, and 
confirmations of, the views here presented have been 
drawn mainly from the sacred Scriptures, and that 
they have been thus derived by virtue of putting a 
new interpretation upon the descriptions brought into 
view. We have read the passages in a different light 
from that in which they are usually read, and have 
endeavored to show them really to mean something 
different from that which they have in this respect 
been commonly understood to mean. 

Now, this is th^ general character of the New 
Church revelation. It is a further explanation of the 
revelations which have come before. It is based 
entirely upon the sacred Scripture, or word of the 
Lord, and consists of a fuller and clearer exposition 
of the truths which are already contained in that. 
This sacred book, written, in the first place, for rude, 
barbarous, and ignorant ages, being adapted to their 
modes of expression and their style of thought, con- 
tains many things on its external surface, or in the 
mere letter, which the human mind now, after ninety 
successive ages of training, of discovery, and develop- 
3* 



30 MODERN SPIRITUALISM. 

ment, plalnl}' sees to be, in a number of cases, unsci- 
entific, in others irrational, and in some immoral. . 

But that rude letter is only the outer garment in 
which it was necessary for the divine truth to clothe 
itself, as a protection for its inner life against the long 
spiritual coldness of those darksome ages. The 
rational difficulties which seem to stand in the way 
of receiving the truth of this divine volume are re- 
moved as soon as its narrations come to be understood 
in their genuine sense. Its real meaning is every 
where a spiritual one ; and those outward, natural 
things of the letter all have actual spiritual realities to 
which they correspond, and which they are here used 
to denote. With a knowledge, therefore, of the spirit- 
ual things to which these accounts relate, we have a 
key by which to understand and interpret them cor- 
rectly. 

As foreseen by St. John in vision, this '* booJc,^* 
which, it must be remembered, is said to have been 
written within, as well as on the outside, is now 
" opened,^' in order to meet the spiritual wants of these 
new times; its ''seven seals ^^ have been taken off, and, 
through the revelations made for *the New Jerusalem, 
men, if they desire it, are enabled to see all the state- 
ments and teachings of this book explained in clear, 
rational light, and to know and understand the genu- 
ine meaning of all its doctrines as they are known, 
and understood, and taught among the angels. 



LECTURE II 



ON TDE ASSOCIATION AND COMMUNICATION OF DEPARTED 
SPIRITS WITH MEN. 



" And when they shall say unto you, Seek unto them that have famil- 
iar spirits, and unto wizards that peep and that mutter ; should not a 
people seek unto their God ? for the living to the dead ? To the law 
and to the testimony : if they speak not according to this word, it is 
because there is no light in them." — Isaiah viii. 19. 



On a previous evening we endeavored to direct 
attention to some features of the spiritual constitution 
of man, and to the rnethod in which the divine rev- 
elations recorded in the Scriptures were communicated 
to the persons who received them. On the present 
occasion it is our design to offer a few remarks on a 
parallel line of communications from the other world, 
which are also mentioned in the Scriptures, of a 
somewhat different kind, quality, and origin. 

When a man first puts off the material body, and 
from it rises forth into the light and life of the spirit- 
ual world, he is in the full possession of every sense 
and faculty which he possessed here. He has, more- 
over, finer perceptions of all kinds. His organs are 
less gross or corporeal than they were here ; being 

(31) 



S2 MODERN SPIRITUALISM. 

more vitally and purely organized, they are, there- 
fore, ia% more sensitive than they were here, and are 
more easily and deeply affected by the objects of that 
world than they formerly were by the objects of this. 
He is then enabled to see much more perfectly than 
he could while in this world, to hear in much greater 
perfection, and enjoys also a far more exquisite sense 
of touch. A similar remark may be made in regard 
to his intellect'- il faculties. The clouds and obscuri- 
ties which matter interposed being removed, they 
become clearer and brighter, while all his powers, 
both of body and mind, find greater freedom of oper- 
ation, and are brought into a fuller and more active 
exercise. 

In short, he is in all things more fully and com- 
pletely a man than he ever was before. At tiiat 
stage of his progress, the man-spirit is neither in 
heaven nor in hell, but in the world of spirits, which 
is an intermediate place, state, or world, midway 
between the heavens and the hells, communicating 
on the one hand with the former, and on the other 
hand with the latter. 

In that intermediate world the man passes succes- 
sively through three distinct states, or spheres, or 
circles of spiritual existence. 

The first state is called that of the exteriors, and 
is a sphere in which the departed spirit is in a condi- 
tion of life very similar to that in which he was before 
he left this world. That Hfe is only a farther contin- 
uation of this hfe, and death is simply the passage. 
Hence the change at first effected in a man is very 
slight. His habits, manners, outward aspect, and ex- 
ternal moral character are the same ; he maintains a 
general deportment, and exhibits general qualities, like 



SECOND STATE OF MEN AFTER DEATH. 83 

tliose whicli he used to maintain and exhibit before 
men here. 

^ut after a certain period, which is longer or 
shorter according to the circumstances in each par- 
ticular case, he passes out of this state, and* comes into 
the second. This is called, to distinguish it, the state 
of the z'wteriors. In this state the spirit is let into 
that state of thinking and feeling in which he was 
internally in the world, when he was alone by him- 
self, and when his desires, and intentions, and thoughts 
took their own flow in perfect freedom. Outward 
restraints being withdrawn, and the exteriors of his 
life being quiesced or laid asleep,- the fountains of his 
interior life are broken up, and his interior thoughts 
and affections brought into open activity and play. 
He then no longer appears in the character which he 
simulated or habitually put on before men, but mani- 
festly assumes that which was proper to his inmost 
thoughts and feelings while in the world. The 
change which this transfer from the first to the second 
state after death effects upon spirits may be compared 
to the change wrought in this world upon many per- 
sons by an emigration from an old state of society, in 
which they have been educated, and where they are 
surrounded by many social, civil, and moral restraints, 
to a new and unformed state of society, like that of 
California or Australia, where those restraints are re- 
moved, or exist only to a limited extent. The inte- 
rior states of men, before hidden or buried, are then 
brought to the surface, and the transformations of 
outward character thus wrought even in tliis world 
are often wonderful to the beholders. In the other 
life, among spirits, the changes thus often effected are 
far more wonderful, for the process there is more 
thorough and deep. 



34 MODERN SPIRITXTALISM. 

The third state into whicli spirits pass is one of 
separation or judgment — a state or sphere in which 
those who in passing through the previous state have 
shown themselves to be internally good, are instructed 
and prepared for heaven ; and those who have there 
shown themselves to be internally evil, turn them- 
selves in an opposite direction, and make ready to 
unite themselves completely to spirits of their own 
like. With the wicked, the third state follows on so 
closely upon the second^ and is so intimately connecL- 
ed with it, that the two may be more truly said to 
constitute but a sino-le continuous state.* 

From this third 'state, therefore, the next stage of 
progress is either, on the one hand, upward into some 
society of the heavenly world, or, on the other hand, 
downward into some society of an opposite kind. 

There are, also, three heavens above, and three 
hells beneath ; but of these it is not our present pur- 
pose further to speak. 

These three states, through which we have described 
the departed spirit as passing, may be compared to 
the bud, the blossom, and the fruit, of a tree. The 
man-spirit passes through them by virtue of the in- 
herent laws of his own constitution. They are the 
successive unrolling or development of different de- 
grees of his own life germ. In the first state the 
life of his spirit may be said to be in the bud ; it is 
swelling and active, but still closed up, as it were, by 
the life of his exteriors which he brought with him 
from the world. In the second state it flowers out, 
60 to speak, opens, and expands itself, bursts its 



* For a feller description of ';he three states, see Swedenborg's Trea- 
tise ou HciAcn, the World of bpiiits, aud Hell, from No. 491 to No. 520. 



COMMUNICATIONS FROM THE WORLD OF SPIRITS. 3o 

enclosure, displaying its quality and disclosing its innate 
tendencies. It thus and there gives full promise of 
what it will be. In the third state it bears its fruit, 
and whether that be evil or good, declares and fixes 
its quality, at the same time determining its per- 
manent condition or state. Then comes the harvest, 
and it is now ready to be gathered into one or the 
other of those two worlds into which all spiritual 
beings finally go. 

li is from the intermediate world of spirits that 
the manifestations to and communications with men, 
which are really made by spirits, proceed. When 
angels are commissioned by the Lord to communicate 
with men, and to open heaven to them, by opening 
their internal senses, they come down into the world 
of spirits to do it. The communication between the 
earth and heaven is through the world of spirits. So 
too, when evil spirits from the hells, that is, devils or 
satans, come to speak with, to infest, enter into or 
possess men, it is accomplished by their coming up 
out of their customary abodes, into the world of 
spirits. 

As the spirits of the departed are every where 
around us, living and moving in close proximity to 
the inhabitants of this world, therefore our minds are 
in close contact with their minds, and are operated 
upon by the influences flowing from them. Their in- 
fluences powerfully aftect us for good or for evil; their 
modes of feeling and wishing, and their forms of per- 
suasion or thought, constantly tend to propagate them- 
selves over into our minds, and to become states o^ 
thought and feeling in us. All through our lives in 
the natural world, spirits are thus intimately associat- 
ed with us, the good as well as the evil. This double 



36 MODERN SPIRITUALISM. 

association with both good and evil spirits leaves us in 
a state of spiritual equilibrium, or freedom of choice ; 
the influence of the good Gounteracting as much as 
possible the baleful influence flowing from the evil. 
When we indulge in evil states of mind, we thereby 
attract the evil spirits more nearly to us, and into a 
more intimate conjunction with us, and when we put 
awiiy evil states of feeHng, willing, and thinking from 
us, and strive after good, we then draw the good 
spirits and angels into closer connection with us, and 
they are able to affect our minds more powerfully with 
their kind of influences. 

The quality of the influences we draw upon our 
minds from the world of spirits, depends upon our 
own choosing. The great and all-prevalent law of 
spiritual affinity regulates both the kind and the 
changes of our spiritual associations. We attract to 
us those spirits who are most like ourselves, and for 
whose tastes, desires, and habits of thought we have 
the strongest or deepest sympathy. 

Under ordinary circumstances, this association of 
departed spirits with men is carried on unconsciously 
to both. Men are not aware of the presence of 
spirits, nor are spirits sensibly aware of the presence 
of men. They know indeed the general fact that 
they are in such a communication or association with 
men, but usually are not momentarily sensible of the 
contact. The two minds dwell together and operate 
upon each other by means of their loves or affections ; 
that is, the habitual desires which animate them; but 
they are separated as to their conscious thoughts. 
This vvall of separation, however, between the con- 
scious tliought of the two minds may sometimes be 
broken down, and the spirit and the man be brought 



DISORDERLY CONNECTIONS WITH SPIRITS. 37 

tlius into a sensible, but yet Dnly internal or mental 
communication. This constitutes a disorderly associa- 
tion with spirits, and is one which is exceedingly dan- 
gerous to the person in whom it occurs. For when a 
spirit comes to a man in this state, he instantly puts 
on every thing in the man's mind, the same as though 
it was in his own mind. He at once reads the whole 
of the man's memory better than he himself can, and 
enters together with him into all his states of thought 
and feeling. While the spirit remains in this kind of 
connection with the man the two minds are in much 
the same relative condition that two reservoirs of 
water are when connected with each other by a con- 
duit or pipe. The contents of each flow and reflow 
reciprocally into the other ; whcitever affects one im- 
mediately affects the other also. Whatsoever the 
man thinks the spirit thinks, and whatsoever he 
knows the spirit knows. And on the other hand, 
v/hatever the spirit brings forth in his own mind 
comes immediately into the man's mind, however evil 
or dire it may be ; and the man knows no otherwise 
than that all those things are his own ; no otherwise 
than that they are produced in his own mind. It is 
in this way that possessions occur, and that various 
insanities are often produced ; the multitude of 
things thus flowing into the man's mind, over which 
he has no control, giving rise to the phenomena that 
are sometimes exhibited in certain cases of mental 
aberration ; and is the reason why persons in that 
state utter so many things that are far removed from 
and at variance with their ordinary healthy states of 
mind. 

A wickedly disposed spirit coming to a man with 
whom he can effect this kind of connection can 



38 MODERN SPIRITUALISM. 

sometimes flow in suddenly upon his mind, md insert 
his own memory in the place of the man's memory, 
thus cutting off, as it were, the thread of the man's 
memory, and inducing a state of forgetfulness. While 
this state lasts the man is carried away, as it were, by 
a kind of mental whirlwind, which shows itself fre- 
quently in outward acts of violence or disorder. 
The spirit then stirs him up to do whatsoever he 
wills to have him do ; he makes use, in fact, of his 
organism, for the time being, for the purpose of eifect- 
ing his own ends, and causes the man to commit sui- 
cide, inflict injury upon others, or perform- any other 
direful act he may wish to impel him to. 

Veiy many things might here be said, showing the 
imminent dangers arising to men from having their 
minds consciously or too intimately associated with the 
minds of spirits ; but the space we here have to spare 
will not allow it. 

There are a great many different ways in which the 
door that separates the two worlds may be opened, 
and through it sensible impressions be communicated 
from one to the other. But, as a general remark, we 
may say that for the most part they are liable to very 
great abuse, and are exceedingly dangerous. This 
door should never be forced open or broken into 
from the outside. We should always wait to have it 
opened to us from within, in an orderly manner. It 
is sometimes so opened by divine permission, by 
angels or good spirits, but never except for some high 
purpose, or with some beneficent end. 

There are also multitudes of spirits on the other 
side of the veil, who, for a vast variety of vain pur- 
poses of their own, would be glad to open and keep 
up au outward seubible commuuication with men iu 



NECESSITY FOR A MEDIUM. 39 

tlie body. These are, for the most part, a low order 
of spirits ; for, as a general thing, the more gross, 
worldly, and sensual a man's life has been while he 
has been in the body, the longer will he remain in 
close proximity to the sphere of this world after he 
enters the other life, and the stronger will generally 
be his desire of communicating. We are told in the 
New Church writings concerning those who have so 
strong a desire to return into the world, and live here 
again, that they even make efforts to enter into other 
men's bodies, and to use them for that purpose — en- 
deavoring to speak and to operate through them. 

In addition to the internal or mental communica- 
tions that may occasionally be opened between spirits 
and men, in which men may hear spirits speaking, and 
sometimes manifestly feel their operations, spirits may 
also operate at times upon material objects, so as to 
produce visible or audible effects, by which they may 
attract the attention of men, and thus commence a 
kind of external intercourse or communication with 
them, without the opening of any of their internal 
sen:es, and without any change of state on the part 
of tie man. 

This kind of communication cannot usually be 
effected without the intervention of some human me- 
dium ; for, as we all know by experience, spirit can- 
not act directly upon matter without the intermedia- 
tion of graduated and adapted substances, capable of 
receiving the influences received from the one, and 
conveying them over to the other. The chasm which 
ordinarily exists between mind and matter must in 
some way be bridged over, in order that impulses of 
the one may be propagated over and become • motions 
of the other. Thus the will of a man can no more 



40 MODEKN SPIMTUALISM. 

operate directly upon his own bones than it could 
upon so many stones in the street. In order to effect 
a communication, a series of nicely-prepared, organ- 
ized substances are required. The bones must be 
operated upon and moved through the medium of the 
muscular fibres. But the mind can no more act 
directly upon the muscles than it could upon the 
bones ; the system of nerves must be interposed. And 
even the fibres of these are altogether too gross to 
receive the first motions of mind ; but all their tubes 
have to be filled with a subtile and rarefied fluid ; and 
so on, up to a set of substances which the natural eye 
is Incapable of viewing, and the natural finger inca- 
pable of touching, we might trace the chain of inter- 
mediation between the spirit and the grosser forms of 
matter. 

As it is with the mind of a man in the body, so it 
is with a spirit who has passed out of the body. He 
cannot operate upon gross material things except 
through the intervention of a series of prepared and 
adapted , substances fitted to act as connecting links 
from one degree to the other. Now, the human sys- 
tem, as we have described it, offers to spirits such a 
medium ready made. By his constitution, man is at 
once a resident, to some extent, in both worlds. He 
is a spirit clothed with a material body; therefore, 
while by means of his natural body he lives in com- 
munication with the natural world, by virtue of his 
spiritual body he at the same time lives in continual 
association with the spiritual world, though for the 
most part he is unconscious of the fact. The two 
worlds, therefore, otherwise separated from each other, 
in him meet and communicate, the one with the other. 
He is the hyphen which stands between the two worlds. 



ANCIENT BELIEF IN DEMONS. 41 

and, while it marks their separation, serves at the 
same time to connect them together. 

A spirit living in the other world may enter into 
connection with a spirit still in the body, and, through 
the substances of his body, open a serial connection 
with the surrounding substances of the material world, 
along which chain may be propagated impulses of a 
living force or energy, like the circuit of a voltaic 
pile, a galvanic battery, or the familiar experiments in 
magnetism and electricity. 

Through the three general kinds of means, namely, 
by the injecting or infusion of ideas manifestly into 
the thought, or by manifest impressions made upon 
the spiritual senses of men, or by communicating an 
impulse to material objects, and thus addressing the 
external senses, communications from the spiritual to 
the natural world have been kept up in nearly all 
ages of past history. They have been hardly ever 
entirely suspended, though sometimes for long periods 
they may have been comparatively infrequent, or even 
exceedingly rare. 

The entire ancient world, Jewish and pagan, be- 
lieved in a world of demons, or disembodied, invisi- 
ble spirits, every where circumfused, and in immedi- 
ate contact with this, with the inhabitants of which it 
was possible and common to consult. By demons 
v.ere not understood devils, necessarily, but merely 
disembodied spirits, either good or evil ; and they 
were consulted or inquired of in those days in regard 
to future events — usually in order to ascertain the 
probable result or success of som.e enterprise or jour- 
ney which the inquiring party was proposing to under- 
take. They were resorted to, also, in times of great 
4* 



i% MODERN SPIRITUALISM. 

distress, perplexity, and trouble, or times of public 
calamity, as war, pestilence, and famine. 

This general belief took very different forms among 
different nations. By some the spirits were divided 
into distinct orders, or classes, and distinct functions 
or offices imputed to them. A gi-eat variety of opin- 
ion prevailed in respect to their nature, origin, and 
characteristics. Some of the old religions assigned 
different regions of the earth as the places of their 
abode. All the literature, however, of that old world 
is full of the doctrine and belief. The teachings of 
the Zendavesta, the Vedas, and the laws of Menu, all 
aisume the truth of the general view, and themselves 
contain many definite theories connected with the 
various parts of the subject. Go where we will in 
the traditions of Persia, India, Medea, Assyria, Chal- 
dea, Ethiopia, and Egypt, the same doctrine of a 
world of spirits turns up, forming one of the greatest, 
if not the very greatest, fact of all their religions. 

So far as our researches into the history of antiquity 
extend, all the early oriental nations were much in the 
practice of placing themselves under some form of 
supernatural influences, of communicating with and 
receiving replies and favors from their gods, — thus 
holding an intercourse with the inhabitants of the 
world of spirits. These doctrines, traditions, and 
practices, with the mysterious rites which accompa- 
nied them, were transmitted from Asia Minor and 
from Egypt to Greece. In all those countries there 
existed legally recognized public institutions, where 
such inquiries could be made, and this kind of inter- 
course could be regularly carried on. These were 
priestly establishments, devoted to the study of the 



ORACLES OF CLASSICAL ANTIQtJITY. 43 

mysteries, and to the care and cure of the sick ; for 
in those days the healing of diseases was intimately 
connected with the teaching of religion ; and the 
prospective cure of a troublesome disease was one 
of the strongest and most common inducements for 
seeking unto the oracles and making inquiry of the 
gods. 

Such institutions were the temple of Belus, at 
Babylon, the great temples along the banks of the 
'Nile in Egypt, the oracle of Jupiter Trophonios in 
Bccotia, the Marsoor oracle at Tiora Mattiene, the 
temple of Esculapius at Pergamus in Asia Minor, 
and the oracles of Apollo at Colophon, and of Jupi- 
ter at Dodona and Delphos. 

In looking over the past history of the world, with 
reference to this kind of phenomena, we shall find 
that they have been exceedingly active in periods pre- 
ceding great changes in the religious state of the 
world, and have been the forerunners of events that 
have powerfully affected the minds of men on a vari- 
ety of subjects, especially in regard to their religious 
sentiments. Thus, at and just before the time when 
our Lord came into the world to institute a new reli- 
gion, the communications of spirits with men had be- 
come extremely common, and their influences upon 
them most distinct and manifest. These influences, 
especially so far as recorded in the New Testament, 
proceeded from evil sources, and were evidently highly 
injurious. The effect of our Lord's mission to the 
earth was to work a very marked change of circum- 
stances in this respect. Those peculiar obsessions 
and possessions by demons, until then so common 
among the Jews and in the surrounding countries, 
thenoaforth disappeared ; and there is every reason to 



44 MODERN SPIRITUALISM. 

believe that the entire system of spiritual communica- 
tions, as they had till then existed, were broken up by 
His advent, and an entire change wrought both in the 
population which had before filled the world of spirits, 
and also in regard to their action upon men. From 
that time forth, also, the oracles throughout the Greek 
and Eoman world ceased from giving their responses, 
and were soon after abandoned by their former vo- 
taries. [See Appendix.] 

That the Israelites and Jews were exceedingly prone 
to seek these communications with the spirits of the 
departed, is very evident from the frequent prohibi- 
tions of the practice that are met with in the Hebrew 
Scriptures, and from the fact repeatedly mentioned in 
their history, that notwithstanding the severity of the 
penalties prescribed against them, persons having fa- 
miliar spirits, or questioners of the dead, — that is, 
persons who kept up a ^ sensible communication with 
spirits, — continued to remain in the land, and the peo- 
ple continued to consult them, though generally in a 
secret or covert manner. As the Jewish church 
gradually drew towards its end, and all the Mosaic 
regulations as well as the statutes of Jehovah were 
less regarded, and therefore more frequently dis- 
obeyed, this open familiarity with departed spirits 
very greatly increased. And it may here be men- 
tioned as an important and interesting confirmation of 
this view, that the relics or traces of the Babylonish 
captivity of the Jews, which have been discovered by 
Mr. Layard in his recent visit to and examination of 
the ruins of Babylon, consist almost entirely of He- 
brew inscriptions relating to this kind of intercourse. 
Among them are the names of many of the spirits, 
Uijimctions to them to depart, various written charms. 



JEWISH rt:lic3 at Babylon. 45 

amulets, or protections against their bad influences, 
directions how many of the evils flowing from the as- 
sociation of spirits with men might be averted, and 
many other things of a like sort. Bat the most re- 
markable feature of the case is, that this one idea of 
the intercourse of disembodied spirits with men 
should have so conspicuously possessed the minds of 
the Jewish people at that day as to be almost the 
only thing which recorded itself on their written 
monuments left in Babylon, with suflicient durability 
to transmit itself to the present time. 

As before observed, when an old dispensation of 
religion is about passing away, and a new one is being 
introduced, these manifestations are more rife, and 
public attention is called more particularly to take 
notice of them ; so it may be inferred, that as in the 
New Church writings a new dispensation is described 
as being introduced, and an old one about to pass 
away, the receivers of those doctrines will naturally 
be looking for or expecting some manifestations of 
this kind to begin to take place. Especially when we 
call to mind the immense amount of information there 
is communicated in these writings concerning the life 
after death, and the fact that very great changes have 
within the last few years occurred in the world of 
spirits. 

Such consequently has been the case. Many re- 
ceivers of the doctrines were looking for the advent 
of some demonstrations of the kind, long before they 
actually made their appearance ; and we presume that 
very few, if any of them, were much taken by sur- 
prise when it began to be alleged that communications 
from spirits were really being received. It is of 
course entirely beyond our province to declare what 



46 MODERJk SPIHITUALISM. 

proportion oi the prevalent pretensions to that kind 
of intercoui'se are spurious and delusive, and what 
portion are really what they claim to be. Nor is 
there any call for such a decision from us. That the 
thing itself is intrinsically possible in the nature of 
things we are quite certain ; that in the present spir- 
itual circumstances of the world they would exten- 
sively reappear we think highly probable; and that 
they have thus reappeared and are existing around 
us we have a very large amount of human testimony 
of a similar kind to that upon which we receive re- 
markable facts in every other department of knowl- 
edge, whether of history or science. 

Supposing them to be real, the next question which, 
arises is in regard to their quality. Are they reli- 
able ? Are they divine revelations ? Do they proceed 
from good spirits or evil spirits ? from heaven or from 
hell ? from devils or angels ? From the little that is 
known concerning the other world, beyond the pre- 
cincts of the New Church, and the extreme crudeness 
of idea every where prevalent of the things of another 
life, it was to be naturally expected that a great vari- 
ety of answers would be given to these questions, and 
a great many different theories be devised to account 
for the phenomena. Such in practice has been found 
to be the case. And while some find in them senti- 
ments that appear to them all wisdom, and beauty, and 
loveliness, and attribute to them an origin no less than 
heavenly, another class of inquirers discover ,in them 
the most pernicious and soul-destroying errors, the 
doctrines of devils, and ascribe to them an origin as 
low as hell itself. 

Our common Protestant Christianity has placed 
itself in a position highly unfavorable to forming a 



DIFFICULTY OF PROTESTANTS. 47 

just judgment in this matter, by its unnecessary and 
iinscriptural denial of any third AYorld in the other 
life — of any intermediate state of departed spirits 
between heaven and hell.* And this common teach- 
ing of the Protestant churches that there are but the 
two conditions of spiritual existence in the other life 
has had the gradual effect of forming the popular 
mind to the same idea. Hence, when any manifesta- 
tions from the spiritual world occur, they have no 
stand-point between those two extremes, and , of 
course arc obliged to assign them all over to one or 
the other. Therefore it is that in our view no one 
of the writers who have attempted to treat these 
modern manifestations from the stand of the current 
theology has been able to appreciate the nature of the 
phenomena here presented, or to do impartial justice 
to their character. As already observed, these com- 
munications are neither airs from heaven nor blasts 
from hell ; are neither divinely authorized revelations 
froi^ angels, nor only infernal breathings from devils. 
The belief which attributes them to a class of demons 
who have never inhabited human bodies is equally 
erroneous according to our views, there being none 
such in existence. 

They are merely outbirths from the mixed and 
varied population of the world of spirits ; for the 
most part neither very good nor very evil, though 
always of disorderly character and grade, and some- 
times sinking to a lower one than common; con- 
versations proceeding from persons like ourselves, 
who have within the last few years, or few months, or 

* This remark does not, of course, apply to the doctrine of the An- 
glican Church, and of the Episcopal, in this country, for that definitely 
a£^ms the e^ustence of such a state. 



48 MODERN SPlillTITALlSM. 

days, goii^ into the other world from our Own midst, 
though disorderly in their desire to communicate. 
Our neighbors of ten years ago are now many of them 
there. Within the last twenty or thirty years a num- 
ber nearly equal to our present population has passed 
into that life from Portland, from Boston, from New 
York, from New England, and so too, of course, from 
the whole United States, as well as every bther part 
of the world. And the great majority of this vast 
concourse are still living in the world of spirits, un- 
transferred as yet either to a higher or to a lower 
state of existence. There they are, with all their 
varied habits of thought, and many of their confirmed 
opinions, and with all the different degrees of moral 
development and character which they possessed here. 
A moment's reflection upon the facts of the case as 
they actually exist, will serve to show us that conver- 
sations held with this population, or communications 
received from them, must in like manner be exceed- 
ingly variable and diverse in their kind and quality. 
They will of course possess no authority or reliabiUty 
whatever as revelations of religious or divine truth. 
And while many of them may appear harmless in 
character, or even give utterance to high and noble 
sentiments and sound moral maxims, yet on the whole 
their tendency will be found to be demoralizing, as 
the intercourse itself is disorderly, and only those 
spirits who love what is foi-bidden will be willing to 
enter into and keep up this famiUarity with men in 
the world. They are revelations influenced from the 
wrong side of the spiritual world, and in the long run 
can tend only more and more to evil and error. This 
view, which from our study of the New Church phi- 
losophy and doctrines we are led to take, is fully veri- 



A 



HADES AND SHEOL NOT GEHENXA. 49 

fied, we believe, by a fair construction of all the phe- 
nomena -which have thus far been reported to have 
occurred. 

We have said that the denial by Protestants of 
the third spiritual world, or intermediate state of 
the departed, between heaven and hell, is imscri])- 
tural. This is a point which in these few papfes we 
have no*t the space sufficiently to show ; but there are 
two or three considerations to which we will refer, 
that may serve to call attention to the subject, and 
excite further inquiry. 1. Besides the terms used 
in the Scriptures to designate heaven, there are also 
in the Greek two other words to denote the places of 
departed spirits.* One of these, Gehenna, unquts- 
tionably means heJl, and is always translated so ; but 
the other term. Hades, properly means the world of 
departed spirits ; and is used to designate the world 
of spirits, or intermediate state, in the New Testa- 
ment. The word in Hebrew answerins^ to the Greek 
Hades is Sheol, and the distinction which is made in 
the writings of the New Church — between the world 
of spirits and the hells appears every where in the 
original languages of the Bible ; and the discrimina- 
tion is strictly kept up throughout the Old and New 
Testaments. 

Martin Luther, in order to get rid of the Romish 
doctrine of purgatory, and remove as far as possible 
all Scripture warrant for the same, when he came to 
translate the Bible into German, rendered both words, 
Hades and Gehenna, as meaning the same place — that 
is, the place of eternal punishment. All the Protes- 



* The word Tartartis is once used, in the Epistle of Peter, to desig- 
nate hell. 



50 MODERN SPIRITUALISM. 

tant editions since have followed his example, and 
hence in our common English Bible we have only 
the single word hell, as a translation of both the other 
words indiscriminately, wherever they occur. Every 
reader of the classical Greek is well aware that Hades, 
in their mythology, did nol; mean the infernal regions, 
but simply the place of shades, the under-world, or 
the abode to which the dead first went after they left 
the body, and where the good and the evil were min- 
gled together ; in other words, the world of spirits. 

In this connection let us attend to a single circum- 
stance brought to view in the visit of Saul to the 
witch of Endor, and the interview which she obtained 
for him with the prophet Samuel ; the account of 
which is recorded in the twenty-eighth chapter of the 
first book of Samuel. When he made his appearance, 
Samuel said unto Saul, " Why hast thou disquieted 
me to bring me up ? wherefore dost thou ask of me, 
seeing that the Lord hath departed from thee ? The 
Lord will deliver Israel with thee into the hand of 
the Philistines ; and to-morrow shalt thou and thy 
sons be with me." 

The prophet had then recently died ; he was a good 
man — had been most unexceptionable in his character 
from his youth up, and became a prophet of the Lord. 
On the common orthodox theory he must of course 
have gone immediately to heaven. But here we have 
Samuel' telling Saul that the very next day he and 
his sons should be with him. Saul — a wicked man, 
who disobeyed the voice of the Lord, who continually 
forsook his statutes, and from whom the Lord was 
about to rend the kingdom and give it to another ; 
how could it be that he should "o so suddenly and at 
once to heayen ? Manifestly that supposition cannot 



I 



SPIRITUAL INTERCOURSE IX THE BIBLE. 51 

be entertained. According to the common theory, he 
ought to have made quite as sudden descent into hell. 
How then, we ask, can the truth of Samuel's asser- 
tion, that the next day Saul and his sons should be in 
the same place with Samuel, be reconciled with the 
current theories in regard to the subject ? Evidently 
it cannot be so reconciled. The only sufficient expla- 
nation of the matter is, to say, with the Ncav Church, 
that Samuel was then in the world of spirits, whither 
all first go after death, and where the good and the 
evil are for a time still mingled together — the place 
called Sheol in the Hebrew of the Old Testament, and 
Hades in the Greek of the New. 

In bringing our remarks on the present occasion to 
a close, there are two broad facts that lie very ob- 
viously exposed on the surface of the Scriptures to 
which we wish briefly to advert. 1. The first of these 
is, that the Bible every where recognizes the truth of 
the prevalence of spiritual intercourse. All its lan- 
guage on the subject presupposes and takes for 
granted that those whom it speaks of as having fa- 
miliar spirits, do in reality consult with departed 
spirits, and obtain communications from them. It 
every where treats the belief of the Jews, and the 
belief of the pagan world that such was the fact, as a 
true belief; and never, in one instance, hints that the 
persons are deceived in this respect, or that the belief 
in question was a delusion. Saul evidently thought 
it no delusion when he went to the woman of Endor. 
The men who told him of her, and he himself, had 
not the least doubt but that she was a real medium, 
and could obtain a communication for him from a real 
spirit. He wished her to call up Samuel for him; 
she called him^ and Samuel came, and his communi- 



52 M0DERJ5 SPIRITUALISM. 

cation is recorded in the Scripture. The whole trans- 
action is recorded as a fact, and not as a strange fact, 
or one unlikely to occur, but as one which all the 
parties concerned expected to see. 

No such words are used in the Scripture concern- 
ing such alleged communications as we now hear so 
frequently in the current literature. It never says, 
*'pseudo spiritualism,^' or ^' so called diviners,^' or 
*' pretended consulters of the dead ; " but takes the 
whole thing for granted, and applies to them a num- 
ber of tei ns, all implying the truth and reality of the 
alleged phenomena. As for instance : Diviners of 
divination, cultivators of occult art, consulters of a 
departed spirit, the knowing or wise wizards, seekers 
unto the dead, and several others. This lact we com- 
mend to the careful attention of those who in this 
day wrap themselves up in a mantle of unbelief on 
this subject, and deny the possibility or the reality of 
this kind of intercourse. 

The other circumstance to which we allude is the 
fact that the Bible, while it thus universally recog- 
nizes the reality of the thing, at the same time very 
strictly enjoined the Israelites to refrain from seeking 
that kind of intercourse. The prohibitions are fre- 
quent, and the penalties prescribed for transgression 
severe. Saul, though king, was compelled to go by 
night, as he was fearful to be seen going by day. 

In the eighteenth chapter of Deuteronomy., Moses, 
at the command of the Lord, says, ** When thou art 
come into the land which the Lord thy God giveth 
thee, thou shalt not learn to do after the abominations 
of those nations ; there shall not be found among you 
any one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass 
through the fire, or tha useth divination, or an obser- 



THE BIBLE FORBIDS IT. 63 

vev of times, dt an enchanter, or a witcli, or a con- 
suiter with fiimiliar spirits, or a wizard, or a necro- 
mancer; for all that do these things are an abomina- 
tion nnto the Lord." 

Another translation of this passage, giving the 
sense perhaps more literally into English, is as fol- 
lows : '' When thou comest to tlie land which Jehovah 
God is about to give thee, there shall not be found in 
thee that maketh his son or his daughter to pass 
through the fire, that useth divinations, and that ask- 
eth questions of the hells, and is given to augury, 
and is a witch and enchanter, and that asketh ques- 
tions of a familiar spirit, and is a soothsayer, and that 
maketh inquiiy of the dead ; for every one that doeth 
these things is an abomination to Jehovah." 

Again, we read, Thoa shalt not suffer a iditch to 
live ; " A man also, or a woman, that hath a familiar 
spirit, or that is a wizard, shall surely be put to death ; 
they shall stone them with stones." And in another 
place we are told that " the soul that turneth after such 
as have fiirailiar spirits, and after wizards, to go after 
them, I will even set my face against that soul, and 
Vv'ill cut him off from among his people." 

In strict accordance with the spirit of these are the 
words of the text : " When they say unto you. Seek 
unto them that have llimiliar spirits, and to wizards 
that peep and that mutter ; should not a people seek 
unto their God ? For the living to the dead 1 To the 
law and to the testimony. If they speak not according 
to this JVordy it is because there is no truth in them." 
And wlien we pass to the New Testament, we find, 
in addition to the demons wliich our Lord and the dis- 
ciples in Tlis day mot and cast out, that the apostles 
Bometimes encountered similar manifestations. In the 
A* 



54 MODEKN SPIEITTJALISil. 

Book of Acts we read of a certain Simon, who be- 
witched the people of Samaria with sorceries ; and 
again of Bar-jesus, or Elymas, a sorcerer or fjxlse 
prophet, who songht to turn away the deputy of the 
province from the faith, and wlio, through Paul, y>^as 
struck with blindness. Both these are instances of 
seeking unhallowed influences from the other world. 
While in the sixteenth chapter of the same book we 
are told of another medium : " And it came to pass, as 
we went to prayer, a certain damsel possessed with a 
spirit of divination met us, Avhich brought her masters 
much gain by soothsaying," — from whom Paul cast 
out XkiQ, ijython or familiar spirit. 

These things we regard as involving a clear and im- 
portant law, a perpetual and constant law of the mind 
and of its connection with the eternal world. Such 
sensible or familiar intercourse with the spirits is never 
to be sought for, but rather to be avoided and shunned 
as an evil or a sin. " For rebellion is as the sin of 
Avitchcraft." Men are not reformed or rendered better 
by this kind of intercourse. It was not until the 
Lord had left Saul that he sought out the woman of 
Endor. And so, a seeking unto the mediums mny 
always be taken as a virtual turning away from the 
Lord. The Bible is His revelation, and it is there that 
we are to seek Him. 



LECTURE III.- 



THE NE\> JER.3ALEM A REVEALED SYSTEM OF DOCTRINAIi 
TRUTH FOR THE NEW AGE. 



" After his I looked, and, behold, a door was opened in heaven." — 
Rev. iv. 1. 



The immortality or future everlasting existence of 
the human soul is a theme which has employed the 
best thought of the best minds in all ages. There is 
a perpetual influx from the world of departed spirits 
into the minds of men, producing a general impres- 
sion that they are to live hereafter. The inflowing 
of this general thought is unconsciously received by 
men ; but yet, under the operation of its influence, 
rationally-minded persons can see a confirmation of 
the truth imaged forth by many things in nature, and 
a further one drawn from the constitution and phe- 
nomena of their own minds. 

But notwithstanding this common idea and general 
belief existing in all times and among all people, 
nothing at all satisfactory or definite can be known 
concerning that future state except through express 
or direct revelation. We require some communica- 

(55) 






56 MODERN SPIRITUALISM. 

tion witli and from that world, in order to assure us 
fully of the reality of its existence, the nature of its 
inhabitants, and the quality of the life which is lived 
there; and ample provision has been made by the 
Lord, at different ages of the world, for the supply of 
this want and the communication of this knowledge, 
so far as they could be rendered serviceable to the 
human race. A divinely-authorized revelation of 
spiritual truth has been kept in the world from the 
first appearance of man upon the earth down to the 
present hour. After the loss or disappearance of the 
Ancient Word, (a Bible or sacred Scripture that ex- 
isted among the nations of Western Asia before the 
Old Testament, or Jewish Scriptures,) Abraham was 
called, Moses raised up, and a new revelation began 
to be communicated. As all who are familiar with 
its history are well aware, this was a slowly pi\^2'res- 
sive revelation. Not only hundreds, but some thou- 
sands of years elapsed between its commencement 
with Abraham and its termination with Malachi. Very 
few indeed are the thini^s which were at lirst made 
known to the three patriarchs, or to the children of 
Jacob. But the comiimnication proceeded. Moses and 
Joshua received more. " Open vision " was repeated 
througljout the days of the Judges. And tliougli it 
ceased then for a period of about three hundred yeai-s, 
it returned when " the Word of the Lord came again 
to Samuel in Sliiloh." Thence it continued in Israel, 
until the last words of the last prophet of the s;icj-ed 
canon. Thus the volume of spiritual truth thrown in 
upon the thought of mankind was constantly increasing. 
It lias been maintained by some tliat tlie Jews knew 
nothing of the immortality of the soul, or of the life 
after death. The particulars, indeed, are wanting 



DIVINE EEYELATIOX PROGRESSIVE. 57 

which enable us to trace minutely the history of these 
ideas in the national mind ; while it is undoubtedly 
tiue that Sadducees existed, as well as others deny- 
ing a future state. But a reference to tlie Tar- 
gunis shows conclusively that a future state, with its 
diiferent places of abode and its appropriate distribu- 
tions of what were called rewards and punishments, 
was entirely flimiliar not only to the learned among 
them but also to the well instructed among the people 
before the daAvn of Christianity. The change, however, 
would still fnlly justify Paul's remarks to Timothy, 
that Jesus Christ had brought life and immortality to 
Jlnht in tlie Gospel, so great is the additional clearness. 

The New Testament revelation, also, was a pro- 
gressive one, extending from the promise of the birth 
ot" John the Baptist to the vision of St. John the Di- 
vine — over a period of, say, nearly one hundred years. 
It is not merely successive in point of time, but is 
also progressive with respect to the amount of knowl- 
edge Vv'hich it communicates relating to the future life ; 
for much more is made known concerning the world 
of angels and spirits in the book of Revelation than 
there is in the Gospel of Matthew. In fact, the book 
of Revelation is almost wholly taken up with an ac- 
count of things heard and seen by John in the world 
where spirits and angels dwell. 

From the hasty glance we have thus been enabled 
to take, on the present and on a previous occasion, of 
the past history of revelations and communications 
from the world of departed spirits, two leading facts 
are brought prominently into view. The first is, that 
the divine revelation to men has been progressively 
delivered. It was not all given at once ; neither to 
one set of prophets, nor in a single age, nor to one 



58 MODERN SPIRITUALISM. 

nation, nor in one language. It lias been a continu- 
ous chain of many successive links ; not a great many- 
centuries having been allowed to elapse without some 
further vision of heavenly things having been accord- 
ed to a duly-authorized seer. 

The second fact is, that communications from the 
other world have, in all ages, consisted of two gen- 
eral classes or kinds ; one which was divinely author- 
ized, and therefore orderly and reliable, and another 
not divinely autliorized, and therefore irregular, un- 
reliable, disorderly, and therefore forbidden. All 
those instances in the sacred Scriptures which we have 
referred to to show the existence of open intercourse, 
through the medium of prophets or seers, were of an 
orderly kind, and occurred by the will of the Divine 
Providence in an orderly, though unusual, operation 
of the physiological and psychological laws of man's 
being. They were provided and caused to occur by 
the Lord for important purposes connected with his 
church and kingdom amongst men. They were in no 
case mentioned sought by the person in any way what- 
ever, that we have any account of, but occurred by 
the special pleasure and provision of the Lord, for 
some good and important purpose relating to his 
church and the spiritual and eternal welfare of men. 

While this was the case with all the prophets and 
seers of the Old Testament, and with the apostles and 
a few others of the New, there was another class of 
persons, exceedingly numerous in comparison, who 
had, in one way or another, more or less sensible or 
open communication with spirits. This numerous 
class, however, desired and sought for such open com- 
munications, and often, by an abuse or perverted use 
of the laws connecting our spirits with those in the 



\ 



MISCELLANEOUS COMMUNICATIONS. 59 

spiritual world, forced open, to a greater or less ex- 
tent, some in one way and some in another, the door 
that ordinarily shuts that world and its inhabitants 
from our view and knowledge, and thus obtained a 
species of unlawful or disorderly entrance, and, as a 
matter of course, according to the laws of spiritual 
association, came, by such communication, into com- 
pany with, and more or less under the influence of, 
mixed and disorderly spirits, and frequently of evil 
and infernal ones. Persons seeking and holding this 
kind of intercourse with the other world are called 
" charmers,''^ " necromancers," " those that have famil- 
iar spirits," " wizards," " conjurers," '* witches," 
*-'■ soothsayers," "diviners," "magicians," "sorcerers," 
"seekers unto the dead," " consulters of 'departed 
spirits," &c.; and these different names are given to 
them as indicating the many various ways in which 
they operated, the various kinds of manifestation they 
were severally in the habit of obtaining, and the vari- 
ous kinds of spiritual influences which they experi- 
enced in their own persons, or caused upon others ; 
for it must be remembered that these difl'erent terms 
in our own language all come from one general source, 
and have as the original of their meaning, " persons 
who liold intercourse with departed (or disimbodied) 
spirits." 

From these two facts thus brought into view, — 
"first, of a progressive divine revelation, and second, 
of a parallel line of unreliable spiritual communica- 
tions, — we draw the two following inferences : name- 
ly, first, that after an interruption of many centuries 
we may reasonably expect a further continuance of 
the chain of divine revelations ; and secondly, that 
whenever, in the history of the world, a period should 



60 MODERN SPIRITUALISM. 

occur in whicli the miscellaneous communications from 
the world of spirits should become again remarkably 
prevalent, should exhibit new and extraordinary fea- 
tures, and develop new and important characteristics, 
then there is an antecedent probability, or a priori 
presumption, that there would in the same age be sent 
into the world, through the Divine Providence, another 
revelation, of an authentic and reliable kind, to meet 
the rational and spiritual wants of the times, and to 
impart to the church and the world a light sufficiently 
full and clear to guide them safely through every exi- 
gency, and to point them unerringly to the genuine 
truth. Such, consequently, is the announcement 
which we now have to make. 

With respect to the first part, therefore, we shall 
assume that well-authenticated facts, occurring all 
around us, and extending over most civilized coun- 
tries, clearly enough for our present purpose demon- 
strate the proposition that miscellaneous communica- 
tions from the other world, varying in character, 
quality, and degree, are now taking place in unusual 
and extraordinary numbers. Many of the communi- 
cations claiming to be thus received contain a style of 
thought and are conveyed in language such as the 
world has never witnessed from a similar source be- 
fore. And that these manifestations are exercising an 
influence upon the popular mind of the day such as 
was never before exercised by communications of a 
similar kind will be, we presume, also readily ad- 
mitted. 

It is also our high privilege to be able to affirm the 
presence in the world of a corresponding . divinely- 
accorded revelation — a revelation as far exceeding 
those which have gone before it in the fulness of its 



DIVINE REVELATIONS NOT ENDED. 61 

disclosures concerning the future life as the spiritual 
manifestations of the day exceed in this respect those 
of the previous ages. ^ 

We are aware that an objection may at this point 
suggest itself to many minds, not from the side of 
spiritualism, but from that of the current old church 
theology ; and it may be worth while to give that ob- 
jection a passing notice. 

It is a frequent and oft-repeated assertion, continu- 
ally meeting our eyes and ears in religious books and 
religious discourses, that the series of divine commu- 
nications to men has long since closed ; that we are to 
have no more revelations ; that the age for such dis- 
closures has ceased, or gone by never more to return. 
And this proposition, by dint of continuous repetition, 
has come at length to be believed, as though it had 
some solid or sufficient ground upon which to rest. But 
this supposition will^ on examination, be found to be 
very far from true. There is certainly nothing in the 
nature of the case to lead to the belief that such rev- 
elations would cease to occur. There is no rational, 
a priori basis for such a doctrine, and no scriptural 
warrant for it. We have sought in vain for a single 
expression in all the Scripture, from beginning to end, 
that contained a hint of any thing of the kind. We 
have never seen or heard any such testimony adduced ; 
on the contrary, the Scriptures all along keep point- 
ing forward in various ways to developments of fact 
and disclosures of truth which are yet to come. Dan- 
iel was told that the meaning of his vision could not 
then be made known to him, but that it should be 
opened or disclosed at the end of many ages. The 
Lord, in speaking to his disciples, referred to a time 
coming when he should no longer, as he did then, veil 
6 



62 MODERN SPIRITUALIS.M. 

what be liad to say in parable, or similitude, or figure, 
but in which the truth would be more plainly or defi- 
nitely unfolded. The whole book of Kevelation is a 
pointing forward to a period of more ample disclosure 
in regard to spiritual and divine things. The heavens 
are seen opening ; the hitherto comparatively sealed 
book of God's word is seen by the apostle to be one 
of the things which were to be opened in that future 
into which he was then symbolically looking ; the New 
Jerusalem was seen to descend — a descent by which 
it is declared that God should reveal himself more 
completely to men than ever before. 

But without wearying your patience by a further 
enumeration of particulars, we may affirm that so far 
from tlie scriptural presumption being that such reve- 
lations are closed, there are frequent and positive pre- 
dictions to the contrary — predictions which fully 
assure not only that there will be further disclosures 
of such truth, but that such truths will be known in 
much greater abundance than in all the times which 
are past. 

Every presumption, therefore, both of reason and 
prophecy, is in favor of the supposition that some new 
divine revelation would be accorded to men about the 
present age of the world ; and this general presump- 
tion will, we think, be very strongly confirmed in the 
mind of any person who will rationally examine the 
subject, and then look out around him upon the many 
and various signs of the times. 

If, then, such a revelation is to be expected, it is 
also rationally to be presumed that that revelation, 
when it does come, will, among other things, make 
known to us the mysteries of another life. Inasmuch 
as the old revelation went on, from stage to stage, 



THE FUTURE LIFE TO BE KNOWN. -63 

disclosing more and more definitely tlie truths concern- 
ing man's future existence, as the world was able to 
bear or receive them, closing in a vision which with- 
drew the veil from between the two worlds in a man- 
ner in which it had never been withdrawn before, may 
we not fairly expect, when the grand drama of heav- 
enly seership again reopens, and a new scene is pre- 
sented, that the other world and the other life will be 
still more fully laid open to view than ever before ? 
We have every reason to suppose that the general 
order of progressive development will be maintained, 
and that the single door there opened into those 
heavenly spheres will be thrown still more widely 
apart, and men made more fully acquainted with the 
states and conditions of their inhabitants. 

Such, consequently, is actually the case. The New 
Jerusalem revelation contains an opening of the con- 
ditions in which men live after they have passed out 
of the mortal body. It makes known the quality and 
the phenomena of the future state, and describes the 
vast but diverse populations that inhabit the world of 
spirits, the spheres of the evil, and the heavenly 
worlds of good spirits and angels. 

And the writings containing these accounts are not 
made up of romantic sketches, are not vague, dreamy, 
highly imaginative, or poetic pictures, to suit the ap- 
petite of a wandering fancy, as many are induced to 
believe, but consist of simple, clear, concise, prosaic 
descriptions of facts conveyed with the minute accu- 
racy of phrase suited to scientific statements, of com ■ 
pact logical trains of thought, of lucid expositions of 
philosophical principles, and of rational unfoldings of 
organic laws. 

Another idea which is very frequently expressed in 



€4; MOD^IRN SPIHITUALISM. 

the religious literature of the day, and which may 
therefore lie in the minds of some as an objection to 
the truth of this kind of revelation, is, that because 
nothins: definite concerninsr the m.ode of the future 
state of existence has been made known in the literal 
sense of the Old and New Testaments, therefore sucl? 
knowledge never will be made known, is* not in itself 
to be desired, and if known would only minister to an 
idle curiosity, and never be of use to mankind. And 
by maintaining and repeating a doctrine like this it is 
now sought to forestall and repress all rational inquiry 
into the subject. 

Nothing can be more fallacious than an allegation 
and an inference of this kind. If it be the mark of a 
noble and manly mind to feel and manifest an interest 
in the great question of its own immortality, it must 
surely be a matter of equal dignity and importance to 
inquire rationally as to the mode and conditions of 
that existence. If a desire for a little knowledge on 
the subject be a commendable quality, then certainly 
a desire for rational, clear, definite, and full knowl- 
edge in regard to it must be more commendable still ; 
and it will be found, as a general rule, that the more 
real interest a person feels in his own future existence, 
the stronger will be his desire to acquire ■ and form 
some definite and rational conceptions concerning the 
manner, state, and conditions of that existence. A 
knowledge concerning the other world is a highly de- 
sirable and proper kind of knowledge. When exhib- 
ited in connection with the principles of genuine reli- 
gion, and used as it may and is intended to be, to 
show man his true destiny, and how he may avoid 
misery and how best attain to eternal happiness in that 
world, it becomes the most valuable kind of knqwl- 



THE LORD WILLING TO KEVEAL. 65 

edge of which it is possible for the mind of man to 
conceive — a knowledge which the Lord in times past 
has not been striving to conceal from his creatures, 
but which, on the other hand, he has been constantly 
endeavoring to prepare them for, that he might com- 
municate it. Through a long series of dispensations 
he has been gradually leading them on to desire and 
ask for more of it, mysteriously lifting the veil now 
and then, giving here and there a glimpse of the won- 
ders which are behind it, so as to attract attention to 
the subject, to arouse curiosity,' invite investigation, 
and stimulate rational inquiry. " Prove me now here' 
wilkf if I will not open you the windows of heaven, 
and your you out a blessing that there be not room 
enough to receive it,'' has always been the language 
of the Lord of Hosts, both in his word and in his 
providence. But men have been so fully absorbed in 
their own worldly interests and affairs that they could 
not have their minds so lifted above them as to ren- 
der such knowledge of any spiritual benefit to them. 
They have been too dim of sight and too dull of 
hearinor heretofore for the further revelation of these 
matters. If they sought* intercourse with the beings 
of the other world in ages past, it was not to gather 
spiritual instruction, or to learn how they might live 
better moral lives, but only to know the result of a 
coming battle or journey, how to succeed in some petty 
quarrel, or to make some other inquiry in regard to 
their merely selfish and worldly affairs. But now, after 
three or four thousand years of training and develop- 
ment, a different state has been prepared with some, 
and the rational mind of many of the race is just be- 
ginning to ask those momentous questions in regard to 
tiie realities of the future life which it ought to have 
6 



66 MODERN SPIRITUALISM. 

asked, and wliich it has been solicited to ask in a proper 
manner ages and ages ago. And here is the divine 
revelation, already in the world, accorded beforehand, 
to answer the question, to meet the coming want, to 
shed the needed light, to supply the incipient demand. 

We hold, therefore, that the prevalent desire which 
is now being manifested by multitudes of people to 
make inquiry concerning the spiritual world, to learn 
the state of the departed, to know in what manner 
their friends who have gone from earth continue to 
live in that other life, to what extent they are still 
aware of the things which are transpiring here, and 
how for they can or are willing to communicate their 
present knowledge to the inhabitants of earth, is a 
rational and proper desire — a desire calculated in the 
long run gradually to elevate the human mind, and 
turn its attention more decidedly to the themes con- 
nected witli our immortality. Jiut the desire needs 
direction and instruction. Like other natural impulses, 
it must be purified and elevated, or it will run to low 
and grovelling gratifications. The Lord has provided 
for it food and stimulus, and these are contained in 
the Sacred Scripture. More i^ involved in the Scrip- 
tural disclosures, and more can be learned from them 
on these topics by careful study than many suppose. 
The heavens desire to communicate this knowledge to 
us, but only through the divinely appointed channels, 
the pages of the Inspired Word ; and to affect us, but 
only by the silent and imperceptible ministry of 
angels. 

Since the execution of the last general judgment in 
the world of spirits, in the year 1757, and the conse- 
quent commencement of a new dispensation, a new 
order of thiuixs has been o-raduallv introduced into all 



PREPARATII NS FOR A NEW AGE. G7 

the arrangements of the spiritual world. The socie- 
ties of diabolical spirits were then removed from the 
world of spirits, and a new order of heavenly societies 
were formed from among the good. The world of 
spirits lias since been filling up with a new popula- 
tion. The intensely profime and evil are not now 
allowed to remain so long, and to accumulate there in 
permanent societies as they formerly did, and the gen- 
eral state of its inhabitants is now one of perpetual 
flux and change. The new heavens or the new 
heavenly societies which wei'e formed at the time of 
the last judgment are brought down nearer to men than 
the former heavens were ; and there is a general and 
strong desire on the part of the good inhabitants of 
the spiritual worlds to communicate the good things 
and true things of their state to men, in their way. 

The truth is that the Lord is at this day rapidly 
preparing affairs, both in the other world and in this, 
for the successive accomplishment of the great and 
glorious things of prophecy ; for hastening on the 
time when the waste places of the earth shall become 
joyous and glad, when the desert shall blossom as the 
rose, and when the lion and the lamb shall lie down 
together. The world is about entering upon the 
earlier stages of a new great epoch in universal his- 
tory, in which humanity is going to achieve that 
grander destiny and development which has for so 
many ages been alike the dream of the poet, the vision 
of the inspired seer, and the rational hope of the 
philosopher and the sage. And that destiny is not to 
be simply a secular or merehj worldly oiie. The main- 
springs of its movement are to be moral forces. It 
will be deeply and intimately connected with the 
church of the race, with the spiritual interests of the 



68 MODERN SPIRITUALISM. 

human soul, and will grow out of a new opening and 
expansion of man's religious life. 

Now with this great thought — the grand idea of 
this new and more gloiious dispensation — the crown 
and diadem of all tiie dispensations that have gone 
before it — the whole spiritual world is swelHng and 
pregnant. There is an intense desire felt on their part 
to communicate the thought, and to help forward the 
movement. The spiritual world is as it were every- 
where pressing down upon this world in order to be 
received and acknowledged. It seeks to inspire the 
minds of men here with a belief in the realities, the 
substantialities, and the nearness of that world and of 
that life. 

But men for the most part are so slow to believe 
these things, are so prone and content to plod on in 
the care and thought of their worldly occupations and 
interests, that they are not ready to seek a knowledge 
of these things of their own accord, or without the 
stimulus of some present and powerful motive. The 
reception of the full, clear, and rational revelation of 
these things made in the divine providence of the 
Lord, one hundred years ago, has been comparatively 
slow and gradual. The age requires some striking 
and extraordinary display to arrest its attention, to 
excite its curiosity, and to lead it to an attentive and 
careftd investigation of the whole subject. 

Demonstrations of this kind exist extensively in the 
new and unparalleled changes and movements of the 
day, so unlike anything witnessed m former ages. All 
things betoken a new i;rent phase in nnivei-sal history. 
What function ])recisely tliese sj)iritualistic manifesta- 
tions are intended to perform in this general movement, 
it is impossible for us to say ; but they are certainly under 



A 15'EW DISPENSATIOX PRESSING IN. 69 

the direction of tlie divine providence, and subject to 
His control, and hence we must infer tliat tliey liave been 
permitted for some wise and sufficient end. Tliey may 
be meant to have an indirect and reflex influence oper- 
,itin^ upon the community whicli does not seek tlie in- 
tercourse, familiarizing the popular mind with the idea 
of a living, real spiritual world, exciting attention, and 
nltimately determining inquiry into right and liealtliy 
channels. Perhaps we may be allowed to say that a 
state of things has arrived at tlie present day in regard 
to these truths, somewhat similar to that which vras ex- 
pressed by our Lord when he was riding into Jerusalem 
on the ass's colt. Speaking of the men, women, and 
children v»'ho were running beside him and singing 
Hosanna to the Son of David, he said, Jf these 
should hold their peace, the very stones would cry out. 
The idea is, that the truth pressed in with such power 
to be made knoAvn, that it must obtain an utterance 
somewhere ; that it was impossible but that it should 
attract to itself mediums through whom it could get 
articulation and voice. And so it is again at this day. 
These great pregnant truths, of such vast impor- 
tance to the human race, and having so direct a bear- 
ing upon man's eternal interests, are pressing in with 
imparalleled power from the other world, and are 
striving to make themselves known. They flow in in 
some form or other, into the better affections of men, 
disposing them to think and inquire, and producing a 
certain illustration of mind when the inquiry is pui'sued 
with right motives and in the right quarters ; while 
Providence seems willing, too, to permit influences of 
an opposite kind to take effect, to flow down into ul- 
timate manifestation, giving visible signs and tokens 
among men, which a certain class of minds can believe, 



70 MODERN SPIRITUALISM. 

and which may be overruled for their ultimate good. 
If the scribes and Pharisees of the prevailing chnrch 
refuse to receive and declare the true doctrine of the 
resurrection and the future life, it may be necessary, in 
the permissions of the divine economy, that the very 
crowds in the streets should lift up their voices. It 
may be claimed by the advocates of these phenomena, 
"that multitudes of well-disposed and enlightened spirits 
have tlms communicaterl, and that they have dis- 
closed to their own friends and to the public mind of 
the world impoitant facts of which it was not before 
aware. They have brought home to the convictions 
and the hearts of many people the spiritual world and 
its inhabitants, and the future life of man, in a sen- 
sible and realizable manner, as the whole church of 
the past has never been able to do. And they have 
given forth many instructions correct in science, 
elevated in moral sentiment, calculated to improve 
the characters of men, and to render them more 
thoughtful, and wiser, and better." . 

But with all this standing out prominently from the 
canvas as one side of the picture, it must not be 
omitted or forgotten that the subject presents also 
another and a very different side. We are content 
to put the inquiry to those most familiar with the 
matter, and therefore the best qualified to judge, 
whether there is not constantly being received from 
the same general source much that is evil and many 
things that are false ; whether, after all, beyond a 
few general facts in regard to the resurrection of the 
spirit, and its immediate entrance into eternal life, 
with the mode in which men first live there, the com- 
munications are not, in a very great majority of cases, 
merely petty and frivolous conversations, absurd or 



CHARACTERISTICS OF THESE COMMUNICATIONS 71 

ridiculous instructions, deceitful and fraudulent alle- 
gations, vapid and incoherent fancies, or high-flown, 
swelling, and bombastic deliverances, of vast preten- 
sion, but of weak substance or fulfilment ; keeping, 
like Macbeth's witches, the word of promise to the 
ear, but breaking it to the hope ; in many cases exer- 
cising a very pernicious and injurious influence upon 
men — taking away their proper and useful interest 
in the common affairs of life, turning them aside from 
their daily avocations and duties, intoxicating their 
minds with a species of unwholesome enthusiasm or 
fervor, lifting them oflf their intellectual feet, and 
carrying them about on the mock wings of a fallacious 
and spurious inspiration ; substituting often, in place 
of their own rationality^ the lead and direction of 
spirits not half so wise, perhaps, or well developed as 
themselves ; and whose company, could, they but be 
brought visibly face to face with them, they would no 
longer be in a desire to keep ; and filling the insane 
asylums all through the land with the victims of a 
new kind of mania.* 

Now this latter class of facts connected with these 
phenomena must not be hastily passed over or pushed 
out of view. They form an integrant and inevitable 
element in this kind of manifestation ; and something 
which must always go along with it, helping to 
modify its character, and tending to impart to it a 
general and permanent quality. 



* "We allow this latter allusion to stand as it is, because it is fully sus- 
tained by the facts of the case. Nevertheless, it ought in justice to be 
remarked in this connection, that the production of insanity is not a 
very distinguishing mark of the spiritual manifestations. Men are 
likewise continually being rendered insane by various religious excite- 
ments, as well as by close application to study, and unremitted attention 
to mercantile business in our large cities. 



73 MODERN SPmrrUALISM. 

And how, we ask, is it possible that it shouhl bo 
otherwise, when we consider the mixed and variable 
character of the population of the world of spirits, 
where all go when they first depart from natural 
body, and the place from which these communica- 
tions come ? Multitudes of abandoned and evil 
men are there, wandering about through that world, 
wishing and determined to counteract any beneficial 
infiuences which good spirits may strive to exert upon 
the minds of men, and to overthrow any good results 
which are likely to be built up here in consequence. 
And we must keep it constantly in mind that in very 
many cases, men who were evil in disposition here 
become far more evil* in action there ; for in that 
work], after a while, all outward restraints upon the 
conduct of men are withdrawn, and the spirit then 
behaves just as wickedly as his secret inclinations 
prompt him to. 

"We are not conscious of the least disposition to 
underrate or undervalue the character and results of 
modern spiritualism, as our remarks may already to 
some extent have served to show. It is our continual 
desire to arrive at a full and just estimate both of the 
present merits and prospective influence of a demon- 
stration evidently growing out of the causes of the 
new dispensation, and intimately connected with it. 
We would also accord sincerity and purity of motive 
to those earnest and honest minds who are endeavor- 
ing to seek the truth through that channel. But 
when examined in all its facts and features, and 
viewed from the stand-point of the New Church, it 
can by no means be regarded, as the final movement 
of this new age. It makes known no new thing to 



A NEW CHURCH NEEDED. <d 

the student of New Cliurcli theology, except as con- 
firming general principles therein disclosed. It may 
possibly turn out to be in the world of theology and 
religion what the French revolution was in the world 
of political institutions, — a breaker up and tearer 
down of mouldering forms and decaying systems of 
the past ; thus perhaps performing a highly important 
and even necessary preliminary work, — but is of 
itself far too chaotic, fragmentary, variable, and con- 
tradictory in its elements to constitute or to contribute 
the positive, organizing, and reconstructive principle 
of the future. 

That principle is to be found in a church sijited to 
the epoch ; a church in a great measure new and dis- 
tinct from preceding ones ; possessing and based upon 
a centralized, complete, self-consistent, and logically 
harmonious system of revealed doctrines ; disclosing 
all the required truths in regard to the other world, 
the modes of life there, and man's eternal destiny ; 
and coming down from a point far above man, and far 
above the world of spirits. 

The necessity for some such revealed standard, act- 
ing as a test to which to bring all the variant and con- 
flicting teachings now flowing in from the other world 
and springing up in this, must we think become appar- 
ent, as the subject is contemplated in the full light 
of history and of fact. 

With these preliminary observations therefore, go- 
ing, as we conceive, to evince an antecedent probability 
that there would at this day be accorded a new divine 
revelation, we are prepared to advance to the more 
specific question, — fVhy are the revelations made 
through Swedenborg entitled to more implicit belief, 
or worthy of greater credit y than are the communica- 
7 



74 MODERN SPIRITUALISM. 

tions received through the spiritual mediums of the 
day 1 

As tliis is the great question between the New 
Church and modern spirituaKsm, we are not unwilling 
to devote some attention to it. We shall have space 
on the present occasion only to open the subject, and 
lay out the general ground ; it is therefore our design 
to follow it up at a future time with a fuller adduc- 
tion of reasons and considerations. 

1. The first point to which we shall invite attention 
is the difference of claim set up by the two systems. 
This difference is apparent upon the very face of the 
two. The system of Swedenborg sets out with the 
averment that it is a divine revelation, and this assev- 
eration it constantly carries Avith it throughout its 
entire length and breadth. Spiritualism, on the other 
hand, makes no such claim. It professes to be, and 
from the very nature of the case must of necessity be, 
a set of variable miscellaneous communications received 
from departed spirits, human and fallible like our- 
selves, and capable of giving forth only their own 
views and opinions. They tell you from the first that 
they are some departed brother, father, or other rela- 
tive, or some neighbor, friend, or acquaintance ; or, 
where this is not the case, some other person of whom 
you have heard, or who, at any rate, not many years 
ago livqd here in the world — men, women, and chil- 
dren like ourselves. All they can testify to are the 
facts which have come under their own personal obser- 
vation since they have been in the world of spirits"; 
and can tell nothing concerning the higher or lower 
spheres of spiritual existence, except from hearsay or 
conjecture ; and in ninety -nine cases out of a hundred 



SPIRITUALISM TRIED BY ITS OWN CLAIM. 75 

they tell you so. The very best and most intelligent 
communications that are received — those professing 
to come from Bacon" and Franklin, or other eminent 
statesmen and philosophers — distinctly disclaim for 
themselves any superior illumination^ plainly assert 
that knowledge is gained in that world, as it is in this, 
by patient study and investigation. The best informed 
and most reliable spirits say in their communications 
that all the higher orders and degrees of truth are 
matters of speculation and opinion among them as 
among us, and distinctly state that what they give 
they give as opinions, and call upon men to exercise 
their own rationality in deciding upon them. Thus 
w^e see that so far as concerns the question of being a 
divinely authorized or infallibly reliable revelation of 
high theological truth, spiritualism is nonsuited before 
it even comes into court, and cannot be brought to 
trial before the same bench that is to pass judgment 
on the system of the New Church. By its own uni- 
versal confession it eschews all divine claims, and vol- 
untarily places itself in the ranks of miscellaneous 
communications from the spiritual world. 

Now, contrast this with the claims of Swedenborg. 
It is a current and prevailing misconception in regard 
to Swedenborg 's case that he received his communica- 
tions from spirits and angels. Because his spiritual 
senses were open and he held continual intercourse 
with the inhabitants of the other world, it is therefore 
supposed and presumed by most persons but little 
acquainted with the subject that what he .gave forth 
was received from spirits and angels, and that his pub- 
lished writings contain the doctrines and sentiments 
which were thus taught him by them. But this is 
altogether an erroneous impression, and one therefore 



76 MODERN SPIRITUALISM. 

which requires most emphatic correction in this place. 
His distinct affirmation is, in regard to the system of 
doctrines which he has given to the world, that he did 
not receive them even from any angel, much less from 
any spirit, but only from the Lord alone. Angels 
were often used (as well they might be) as mediums 
to impart to him useful instructions, to unfold and 
illustrate for him some doctrine of divine truth, and 
communicate to him their ideas of it ; but the author- 
ity for the truths themselves is derived from the Lord 
through the Word. 

This is a proposition so important to be understood 
and borne in mind that we will give at least one state- 
ment of it in his own words. In the last work he 
wrote and published, and in which is contained the 
Universal Theology* of the New Church, he says : — 
" That the Lord has manifested himself before me, his 
servant, and sent me on this office, and that, after 
this, he opened the sight of my spirit, and thus let 
me into the spiritual world, and gave to see the 
heavens and the hells, and also to speak with angels 
and spirits, and this now for many years, I testify in 
truth ; and also that, from the first day of my call to 
this office, I have never received any thing appertain- 
ing to the doctrines of that church from any angel, 
but from the Lord alone, while I read the Word. To 
the end that the Lord might be constantly present, 
he revealed to me the spiritual sense of his Word, in 
which sense divine truth is in its light ; and in this 
light he is continually present." — True Christian 
Religion, 779, 780. 

Assertions to this effect he repeatedly makes in 

* Called also the Trv£ Christian Religion, 



THE NEW JERUSALEM A DIVINE REVELATION. 77 

letters to his friends, and in various parts of his 
writings ; it is his constant claim for thirty years, from 
the commencement to the close of his mission. In 
his letter to the Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt, who 
had inquired of him in relation to the subject, he 
says that the Lord, unconsciously to Mm, had pre- 
pared him for the office from his infancy upward ; and 
that this favor was not shown to him on account of 
any merits of his own, but for the sake of the New 
Church, and the great concern of all Christians' sal- 
vation and happiness. 

For twenty-seven years he enjoyed uninterrupted 
open intercourse with the other world ; during which 
time, as he himself states, he met and conversed with 
angels from all three of the heavens, with evil spirits 
from all three of the hells, with spirits from every 
part of the world of spirits ; with many who had 
lived on different planets in our solar system, and on 
other worlds beyond our solar system — in all to the 
number of many thousands. And in a great many 
cases he reports the conversations which he had with 
them ; he tells what he saw in their places of abode ; 
he relates what he learned from them in regard to 
their own character, history, and present opinions ; he 
makes a record of their view^s and beliefs on a great 
variety of subjects — philosophical, religious, and 
moral. But what he gets from a spirit lie reports as 
coming from a spirit, and what he hears among the 
angels he relates as coming from the angels. He sim- 
ply reports them over, as matters of fact, for what 
they are worth, never intimating that such views are 
to be received as divine or infallibly reliable truths ; 
and communications so received form no part of the 



78 MODEUN SPIRITUALISM. 

New Churcli system of doctrines.* That system was 
taught him solely by the Lord, from the Word ; and 
he repeatedly affirms that it was not permitted him to 
incorporate into it any thing coming from any other 
source, averring that so many and so strongly con- 
firmed persuasions of what is false exist in the spirit- 
ual world, unless he had been continually guarded by 
the Lord against being influenced by spirits, and 
against adopting any thing from them as doctrine, it 
could not have been otherwise than that his revelation 
would have been full of errors. What might have 
come from spirits would have been filled and mingled 
with falsities, and what might have come even from 
angels would have contained various fallacies and mis- 
conceptions or partial and erroneous impressions of 
truth, wanting in adaptation to the universal spiritual 
needs of mankind. 

From the tenor of these statements it will be per- 
ceived that a very grave distinction is to be observed 
between the revelations of the New Jerusalem and 
ordinary communications from the other world. Swe- 
denborg was not in any sense merely a clairvoyant or 
spiritualistic medium. He received his doctrinal 
teachings from none of the '^ seven spheres " or " cir- 
cles " in the other life. Tried, therefore, by their 
own claims merely, and with equal liberality granting 
to each system the character which it demands for 
itself, a wide chasm is found to exist between them. 
It will be seen that while on the one hand spiritual- 
ism, as a matter of course, falls of its own accord into 

* Though they are regarded by New Churchmen as reliable disclosures 
of fact, and of facts calculated to throw important lights over the laws 
and principles of divine truth. 



DIYEESITT OF THE TWO CLAIMS. 79 

that scries of disclosures from the other world which 
we have all along denominated 'miscellaneous comimi- 
nications^ the New Church system, on the other hand, 
is based on truths and facts and principles drawn from 
the Word of God, delivered through a line of divinely 
commissioned prophets, apostles, and seers. 

With this marking off of separate position we shall 
be prepared to go forward in a subsequent lecture and 
adduce some of the reasons which serve to substantiate 
this diversity of claim. 



LECTUEE IV. 



WHY ARE THE DISCLOSURES OF SWEDENBORG OF MORE 
AUTHORITY THAN THOSE OF SPIRITUALISM? 



" And he said unto him, Behold now, there is in this city a man of 
God, and he is an honorable man ; all that he saith cometh surely to 
pu,ss : now let us go thither ; peradvcnture he can show us our way that 
we should go." — 1 Sam. ix. 6. 



At the conclusion of our last lecture we promised 
to bring forward some of the reasons which induce us 
to prefer the revelations made through Swedenborg to 
those coming through spiritualism. It is our design, 
therefore, to proceed now and present a few considera- 
tions which seem to us to render his statements more 
reliable t'lian those of spiritual mediums, and to in- 
spire a superior degree of confidence in the genuine 
truthfulness of his revelations. 

These proofs will be altogether internal, based upon 
the intrinsic characteristics of the revelations them- 
selves, and the relations they bear to other systems of 
known or acknowledared truth. Thev will be ad- 
dressed to the reason, or more properly, perhaps, to 
that purer rationality of the mind which is a percep- 
tive faculty, by wl ose use we see, as it were, the iu- 

m 



PECULIARITY OF SWEDENBORG's CLAIM. 81 

trinsic truth or falsity of a proposition, whose exercise 
involves a moral quality, and which is in itself the 
highest power of the understanding.' 

1. The first consideration to which we shall refer is 
that of the claim itself. This was in part alluded to 
in our last discourse ; but we desire to recall attention 
to it for a few moments, with a view of revolving it 
in a new light. The revelator himself declares that 
he received the doctrines from the Lord alone ; and 
appends the extraordinary statement that he was -not 
permitted to send forth any thing as doctrine that 
might be taught him by spirits, not even by heavenly 
spirits, nor yet by the angels themselves ; giving as a 
reason for this that revelations coming even from good 
spirits are not reliable, and those from angels do not 
possess the authority of divine truth. 

When we consider the ideas most commonly preva- 
lent concerning the invisible world, with what awe 
any communications from it are usually received, with 
how much confidence any statements coming from a 
supernatural source are apt to be regarded as of divine 
authority, — when we reflect that to most minds the 
bare assurance that a doctrine was delivered by a 
being from the other world would be a sufhqjent guar- 
anty for believing it, and when we observe how much 
reliance is now placed on the statements of disembod- 
ied spirits, and how readily many of their commands 
are obeyed, merely because they come from spirits, — 
the above assertions made by Swedenborg are truly 
remarkable. Had he been an impostor it never would 
have occurred to him to set up the peculiar claim he 
has, and to couple it with such reasons. To whom 
was it before known among men that a revelation from 
angels vras not sufficiently reliable to be received as 



S2 MODERN SPIRITUALISM. 

infallible doctrine? "What impostor would not have 
supposed that if his revelation came from the super- 
natural world at all, it would be of sufficient authority ? 

We regard this statement of Swedenborg, then, 
connected with the accounts which he gives concern- 
ing the life of spirits, their capacity of communicating 
with men, their want of reliability when they do com- 
municate, and viewed in the light and confirmation of 
modern facts and experiences, as something worthy of 
arresting our attention. And when we go further, 
and look around upon what is taking place about us 
— observing the broad fact that spiritualism does 
every where base itself upon miscellaneous communi- 
cations received not even from angels, but from spirits 
of lower grade, and of every imaginable character or 
quality — the circumstance, we say, that a revelator 
so long ago should have had sufficient insight imparted 
to him to make so vital a distinction, is prima facie 
evidence in favor of his truthfulness. The superiority 
of his claim creates an antecedent probability of the 
superiority of his mission, and affords at least a very 
strong presumption in favor of his revelation. 

2. The second consideration which we shall adduce 
is the fact that Swedenborg was a seer. This is a 
proposition generally acknowledged by spiritualism, 
and does not, therefore, require to be proven. Nearly 
all the receivers of the spiritualistic doctrines, if not 
all, freely admit that he had that kind of intercourse 
with spirits which he describes, and that his commu- 
nications with them extended beyond those of almost 
any other person of whom we have a record ; and 
many of the spirits who it is said communicate through 
the modern mediums constantly aver that he had the 
open intercourse with those of the other life that he 



SWEDENBORG A TRUE SEER. 83 

claims for himself, and that he had a far greater 
knowledge concerning their world and its inhabitants 
than any man who ever lived. The idea that he was 
gifted with extraordinary spiritual powers of some 
kind is also beginning to gain currency in circles be- 
yond the precincts of spiritualism and the New 
Church. 

Let us look at the consequences which this fact of 
seership carries with it. 

His eyes were open. All his spiritual senses were 
open, and in full activity and exercise. He could 
look out directly upon the scenes of the world of 
spirits as we ca» look forth upon the scenes of this 
world. He could see wdiatever was taking place there. 
He needed not that any spirit should come and tell 
him that spirits are in the human form, — to tell him. 
that men rise immediately after death — how they 
look and in what condition they find themselves after 
the natural body has been thrown aside — how that 
world appears — how spirits live, and what they are 
in the habit of doing, — for all these things he could 
see and observe for himself. He enjoyed every means 
of obtaining information concerning that world and 
that life that they themselves enjoyed. He was as 
familiar with the laws and phenomena of that w^orld, 
and with the. state of things there, as we are with the 
laws and phenomena of this world, and of the state 
of things here. 

Contrast this condition of his with that of the spir- 
itual mediums. They are perfectly in the dark as 
regards every thing pertaining to the other world. 
Not a single circumstance do they know by their own 
observation. They are entirely dependent upon others 
for what they receive, and have no means at hand by 



84 MODERN SPIRITUALISM. 

which to correct the reports.* Most of them have 
not sufficient knowledge concerning the other life to 
understand correctly the impressions made upon them, 
or to translate correctly the meaning of the messages 
communicated through them, or to understand intelli- 
gently the phenomena connected with it. 

When a spirit approached Swedenborg, he saw him, 
could observe his appearance, his manners, could per- 
ceive something of his quality, and form an idea of 
his character, as men here can by observation know 
who it is with whom they are holding intercourse, or 
form some estimate of character from manners and 
appearance, if they do not know them. 

Not so with the mediums. They have no sensible 
perception of the person wdth whom they are commu- 
nicating. The spirit can assume to be any body he 
chooses ; can sustain, for the time, any character he 
likes, and can tell any kind of story he pleases, still 
remaining beyond their power of detection. 

Swedenborg enjoyed open intercourse with the 
spiritual world nearly thirty years ; he was, besides, a 
man of extraordinary intellectual endowments. He 
possessed great philosophical acumen, with almost un- 
paralleled scientific attainments. Reflect a moment 
upon the advantages which such a man would possess 
for acquiring information and forming correct ideas. 
We all know how it is in this world. A man of little 
reading, and possessing a low order of talent, may go 
to Europe and return scarcely a whit wiser than he 
v> ent ; while another, of large capacity and extensive 
erudition, will astonish us with the extent and accu- 

* The few instances in which some spiritur.lists aver that they have 
seen spirits, or a naked hand, do not seem to us sufficiently important 
to modify the language of our general statement. 



swedenborg's endowments for his office. 85 

racy of his observations, and with the amount of reli- 
able knowledge and new information he brings home. 
So would it be with a man like Swedenborg in the 
spiritual world. He enjoyed all the privileges in this 
respect of a permanent resident there ; and with the 
laws of mind before us we can see how intrinsically 
superior his acquisition of accurate knowledge would 
be, not only to all merely spiritualistic mediums, but 
even to that of most spirits themselves. There cer- 
tainly cannot be more than one person in a hundred 
millions so endowed and capacitated to acquire knowl- 
edge by familiar intercourse with the spiritual world 
as he was. And it is not too much to say, then, that 
intelligent spirits who have passed out of the body 
from among us, and have been in that world five, ten, 
fifteen, twenty, or even twenty-five years, would not 
possess the qualifications for communicating to us 
abundant and correct information concerning that 
world and that life that Swedenborg possesses ; w^hile 
the great mass of spirits — those of common mind and 
common attainments, with little curiosity or inquiry 
— might remain in that world age after age and cen- 
tury after century without ever acquiring a tithe of 
his knowledge of the subject. For twenty-seven 
years he made the facts or phenomena, the laws and 
principles, of the other state of existence matter of* 
laborious study, of scientific observation, and of philo- 
sophical deduction. 

Supposing, therefore, that Swedenborg had no spe- 
cial commission of a divine kind, and placing the plea 
for his reliability merely upon his qualities as a man 
and his opportunities as a seer, we must at once pro- 
nounce his disclosures to have a claim upon our tonfi- 
8 



86 MODERN SPIRITUALISM. 

dence superior to those of any spiritualist medium, 
ancient or modern, of which we have any account. 

S. The third consideration, to which we now ad- 
vance, is that the revelations of Swedenborg constitute 
a system. 

It is hardly necessary that we allude to the fact 
that spiritualism is fragmentary and variable in the 
matter of its disclosures. While it is not denied that 
some important and evident truths have been and are 
being so communicated, it is just as clear that many 
pernicious errors have gained admittance through the 
same door ; that the contents of the revelations are 
discordant and heterogeneous. The different parts 
are not in agreement with each other. Besides the 
extreme frivolousness of most of the communications, 
there are grave discrepancies in regard to higher 
themes of disclosure. One class of mediums will 
contradict another class on important points of spirit- 
ual belief; and doctrines are taught through them 
coming from every point of the theological compass. 
How can communications coming in this manner and 
possessing these characteristics be reliable witnesses in 
relation to the higher subjects of human thought ? 

With the writings of Swedenborg the case is differ- 
ent. His revelations form one compact and" homoge- 
^leous system. All the different parts are nicely ad- 
justed to each other, and all fall harmoniously into 
their several places. There is not only a simple logi- 
cal consistency between them, but a kind of living 
coherency running through them all, binding them 
into a single organic whole. No fact or doctrine is 
here found but is needed to fill an important place in 
this complete body ; and no place in the circle of 



EXTENT OF SWEDENBORG's DISCLOSURES. 8T 

tliouglit is left without its appropriate teaching of 
principles and facts. Every part is integral to every 
other part ; and the whole solves all»the questions of 
philosophy, and solves them in harmony with each 
other. It addresses itself to the reason, and the rea- 
son can decide, by examining its contents, as to the 
rationality and truth of the system. 

4. The fourth consideration to which we advert is 
the relative extent of his disclosures. 

Spiritualism really tells us very little about the 
other world and its inhabitants, about the modes of 
life there and the laws of that state of being, when 
compared to the amount of information given on the 
subject in the writings of Swedenborg. The disclo- 
sures coming through the mediums contain things so 
new to most people, and giving, as they do, some light 
on subjects upon w^hich such entire ignorance gener- 
ally prevails, it is not at all remarkable that they 
should strike the minds of multitudes with consider- 
able amazement. The contrast between what was be- 
fore popularly known concerning the other life and 
that which is now made known through spiritualism 
is very great indeed. We have no wish to under esti- 
mate the addition of knowledge that has been made 
in this respect. Still, we feel bound to state it as a 
fact, which may be verified by examination, that the 
contrast between the knowledge that may be gained 
on these subjects from spiritualism (supposing all its 
disclosures to be true) and that which may be found 
in the New Church writings is very much greater 
tiian that between spiritualism and the rest of the 
world. The two will hardly bear comparison together, 
so great a preponderance is there of light and knowl- 
edge in favor of the New Church system. 



88 MODERN SPIRITUALISM, 

Only look a moment at the facts of the case. About 
one half the theological writings which Swedenborg 
has left are devoted to themes connected with the 
spiritual world. His disclosures on these subjects 
alone, therefore, comprise nearly fifteen closely -printed 
octavo volumes. Add to this that throughout these 
there is very little indeed, if any, repetition. No 
time is lost and no space thrown away in eloquent 
rhetoric or abstract speculations. The style is every 
where simple, clear, direct, concise. Every para- 
graph is made to communicate a fact or evolve a prin- 
ciple. All his memorable relations, and every con- 
versation with a spirit which he records, is introduced 
only to illustrate some law or bring to light some 
fresh phenomenon of that state of existence. He had 
too much to do in one short lifetime, too much knowl- 
edge to communicate, and too many important truths 
to write out for the future use of men, either to trifle 
with his readers, to loiter at his task, or to perform 
any portion of it twice over. Hence the slowness 
with which his system is received. It is on account 
of its vastness. Not that he discloses so little, but 
because he communicates so much ; because he takes 
the human mind so far away from the common routine 
of thought, and lifts it so high into the upper regions 
of rational and spiritual trutii. It is not a collection - 
of pleasing fancies which may be intellectually played 
with, but a system of solid truths that must be under- 
standingly acquired. In the mastery of it you mount 
from fact to fact and from principle to principle, as in 
the study of a fully developed and well ordered sci- 
ence. It is like the science of astronomy, in which 
every new fact gained fills with further particulars a 
previous idea, or extends the horizon )f the mind in 



HIS DESCRIPTIONS OF THE OTHER LIFE. 89 

a wider circle. Every step taken in it is a real ad- 
vance; every page read and retained is a definite 
addition to the stores of our positive knowledge. It 
contains not only a complete geography, so to speak, 
of the invisible world, but also a general account of 
the different classes of its inhabitants, with a compre- 
hensive statement of its constitution and laws. 

It takes man from the moment he enters the other 
life, and traces him through all the changes, phases, 
and developments in the line of his destiny, until he 
arrives at his final and permanent abode. When the 
body descends into the grave, Swedenborg passes be- 
yond that gate, and follows the departing spirit. He 
tells us of the form, appearance, and functions of the 
spirit's body. He describes, minutely enough for our 
information, the world into which the spirit comes ; 
the state of life in which he then is ; and how he is 
associated with the people whom he finds there. He 
gives an account of the great populations that reside 
in that part of the world of spirits into which all 
spirits first go, and which constitutes the first state 
after death ; shows us how the different nations and 
peoples of the Christian world are situated there with 
respect to each other ; how the Mohammedans are 
situated, and how the pagan or Gentile communities 
there appear. Not only are all the different popula- 
tions which go thither from this earth described, but 
we learn also of the men who come into that world 
from the other planets. Nor are we confined to the 
limits of our own solar system in this respect, but our 
minds are carried beyond our own system into the 
sidereal worlds, and enough made known to show us 
that the planets of other constellations are inhabited. 



90 MODERN SPIRITTTA.LTSM. 

and that they too are daily sending forward their myri- 
ads of spirits into the other life. 

And all this is in regard to the first state into which 
men go after death — the very first entrance or vesti- 
bule of the spiritual world. It is from this first state 
in the world of spirits that all the disclosures of spir- 
itualism undoubtedly come. The familiar spirits, or 
those who communicate through mediums, are persons 
who are still living in that mere vestibule of the other 
world.* And the account which Swedenborg gives 
of that state is in general agreement with what these 
communicating spirits make known concerning the 
world in which they are. From his descriptions of 
it, and his statements in regard to the condition of 
things which exists there, we should expect just such 
developments and disclosures to take place should a 
communication be opened between its inhabitaiits and 
people in this world, as we now find revealed through 
spiritualism. 

It is a world in which there is much magnificence 
and beauty ; a state of existence which is an advance 
upon our present condition ; a world of greater free- 
dom, and in which many new opportunities are open 
to the expanding and developing mind. Persons on 
entering that world are usually seized with a degree 
of exhilaration and delight from the circumstance of 

* The manifestations are all from that state, although they may at 
times come from spirits who have passed beyond it ; for the spirits Avho 
have passed beyond come back into it in order to communicate. Thus, 
should there a manifestation be given from an evil spirit of one of the 
hells, it would be because he had for the time being couie up out of his 
own evil society into the world of spirits. We assume, however, in 
these lectures, that a majority of these manifestations come from per- 
sons recently dead, and who, consequently, have not yet passed into any 
of the other states. 



FIRST STATE OF MEN AFTER DEATH. 91 

finding themselves still so completely alive, and at the 
prospect which is opened up before them of an end- 
less existence without any more death. 

Moreover, it is a state in which men are still in the 
life of their exteriors, w^hen they appear much the 
same that they did before they left us. Their interi- 
ors are not yet necessarily revealed, and the wicked 
may, if they choose, put on a seemly and generally 
becoming external behavior. Hence the common im- 
pression which at first flows in from that world that 
there are no evil spirits ; that every thing is progress ; 
and that that progress is all in the right direction. 
This would naturally be the appearance things would 
wear in that first state ; for men are continually pass- 
ing out of that sphere or state into the next beyond, 
just as they are continually passing out of our world 
into the next. Their communities are in a perpetual 
flow and transformation by the reception of new indi- 
viduals from this world, and, after their residence 
there for a number of years, their transfer to the next 
state, just as our communities here are in a perpetual 
flux and change from the continual births of new 
individuals, and continual deaths. 

And because men there are all free, and all develop 
themselves in precisely the manner which they prefer, 
it cannot but be, as a general thing, a happy state of 
existence to those who are in it. And as all pass out 
of it in the direction they choose, each one pursuing 
that line of development most congenial to his tastes, 
it is natural enough that there should seem to be one 
great law of eternal progression holding sway over all 
classes of mind alike. 

But reflect a moment upon how limited a portion 
of the spiritual world that is from which these com- 



92 MODERN SPIRITUALISM. 

munications come. It is only the merest vestibule of 
that immeasurable temple which lies beyond. Hence 
it is that in these communications we hear so little 
about any of the subsequent states into which spirits 
pass ; that we get nothing but opinions or conjectures 
concerning the spheres that lie beyond ; that we hear 
so little concerning the second state, so much less 
concerning the third state, and nothing at all, scarcely, 
of those eternal abodes where, on the one hand, the 
myriads of the blessed are arranged in three vast ex- 
panses rising one above the other, and on the other 
hand the universal congregations of an opposite kind 
recede, one behind the other, downward into the 
realms of everlasting darkness. 

Hence, too, it is that we hear so little in these com- 
munications concerning the higher truths of religion ; 
so little definite doctrine concerning the Lor-l Jesus 
Christ ; of the glorification of his humanity, of his 
divine work of redemption, of the spiritual sense of 
the sacred Scripture, of the science of correspond- 
ences, of hereditary evil, and of the spiritual regen- 
eration of man. 

Now, in contrast with this, consider the revelations 
of Swedenborg in respect to these things. He does 
not stop with you at the portico of the temple, and 
after describing to you the scenes there, straightway 
leave you to your own conjectures. He conducts us 
within the building ; he leads us slowly through its 
long-drawn aisles, through its transepts, its chancels, 
and its choirs ; he points us to the great crowd of 
worshippers assembled about the altar, and shows us, 
also, what is going on at the various shrines in the 
nooks and corners ; he lifts now and then a marble 
slab from the pavement, that we may perceive the 



COMPLETE MAP OF TIIE SPIRITUAL UNIVERSE. 93 

smoke whicli rises up from beneath, and get an occa- 
sional glance into the donjon keeps and charnel houses 
below ; and then bids us lift our eyes to the serial 
galleries where the white-robed bands are chanting the 
high praises of God and of the Lamb, or points them 
still upward to tjie immensity of the vaulted roof and 
the measureless concave of that illimitable dome. 

He describes to us the second and third states of 
spirits as well as the first ; he tells us of the heavens 
as well as concerning the world of spirits ; he de- 
scribes the three distinct degrees or worlds into which 
they are divided as he does the three degrees of devel- 
opment which attend a progress through the world of 
spirits. And he is as comprehensive and as satisfac- 
tory in the information he conveys concerning the suc- 
cessive communities of the evil as he is concerning 
the ascending societies of the good. 

In his disclosures the entire spiritual universe is 
distinctly mapped out ; all its different parts are 
brought fairly into view ; not one of them is left out, 
or pushed aside, or neglected, or hurriedly and super- 
ficially passed over. The distance to which all these 
extend beyond the outermost confines of spiritualism 
is, at a moderate estimation, as ten to one. A person 
has only to take up a volume of Swedenborg's, as, for 
instance, the work on Heaven and Hell, and read with 
considerate attention the table of its contents, to per- 
ceive the superior extent and comprehensiveness of 
the knowledge he undertakes to communicate. Let 
him carefully contemplate the amplitude of the ground 
there laid out before him, the philosophical mode in 
which the subjects are treated, the rich variety of 
topics that are discussed, and the logical order in 
which they are introduced ; let him observe the great 



-94 MODERN SPIRITUALISM. 

number of important principles tliat are announced, 
with the fulness of light and illustration that attend 
their development ; and then let him pass in like man- 
ner to his other works, and to the Memorable Rela- 
tions, and he must, we think, rise from the perusal 
impressed with a conviction that nothing else in human 
literature can be compared to them ; and that in them 
we are introduced to a wider, more thorough, more 
definite and complete account of the invisible commu- 
nities than in all the other books that have ever been 
written put together, or than has elsewhere entered 
into the heart of man to conceive could ever be given 
in human language. We conclude, therefore, that 
the fact that Swedenborg communicates to us so much 
larger an amount of information concerning the other 
life is another important reason why we should receive 
his revelations in preference to those of spiritualism, 
and a fact, too, which, as his works succeed in inviting 
that fulness of study which they deserve, will insure 
for him a general reception among rational and reli- 
gious minds. 

5. The fifth thought which we shall proceed to 
suggest is, that the revelations of Swedenborg com- 
pletely forestall, overlook, and account for the phe- 
nomena of spiritualism. 

This claim might be extended farther. With equal 
propriety it might be announced that the facts and 
principles brought to light in his writings clear up 
and explain all the great questions of pneumatology. 
They afford us a scientific clew to all similar phenom- 
ena in past times, and unlock the principal mysteries 
of the ancient magic — black and white — with all 
the modes of an improper spiritual intercourse and 
influence, as well as all those cases of spiritual vision 



DISCOURSE OF SIIRITS WITH MAN. 95 

which were of an orderly kind. In short, his system 
of disclosures gives us an insight into all the circum- 
stances of a spiritual state of existence, of the rela- 
tions of that state to our present one, of the con- 
nections between that world and this world, of the 
operations of persons in that world upon persons in 
this world, and of the connection of the spirit with 
the body. 

But let us see in what manner the phenomena of 
spiritualism are forestalled in his writings. This can 
only be accomplished by giving a few extracts. 

These selections must of course waive all reference 
to that part of the subject in which are taught the 
truths relative to man's being all the time in the midst 
of spirits, and confine themselves to those phenomena 
peculiar to the modern manifestations. 

I. Concerning the Discourse of Spirits with Man. 

"It is believed by many that man may be taught 
of the Lord by spirits speaking with him ; but they 
who believe this, and are willing to believe it, do not 
know that it is connected with danger to their souls. 
Man, so long as he lives in the world, is in the midst 
of spirits as to his spirit ; and yet spirits do not know 
that they are with man, nor doth man know that he 
is with spirits ; the reason is, because they are con- 
joined as to the affections of the will immediately, 
and as to the thoughts of the understanding mediately ; 
for man thinks naturally, but spirits spiritually; and 
natural and spiritual thought do not otherwise make 
one than by correspondences ; a union by correspond- 
ences causes that one doth not know any thing con- 
cerning the other. But as soon as spirits begin to 



9b MODERN SPIRirUALISM. 

speak with man, they come out of their spiritual state 
into the natural state of man, and in this case they 
know that they are with man ; and conjoin themselves 
with the thoughts of his affection, and from those 
thoughts speak with him ; they cannot enter into 
any thing else, for similar affection and consequent 
thought conjoins all, and dissimilar separates. It is 
owing to this circumstance that the speaking spirit is 
in the same principles with the man to whom he 
speaks, whether they be true or false, and likewise 
that he excites them, and by his affection conjoined to 
the man's affection, strongly confirms them. Hence 
it is manifest that none other than similar spirits speak 
with man or manifestly operate upon him, for manifest 
operation coincides with speech. Hence it is that no 
other than enthusiastic spirits speak with enthusiasts ; 
also that no other than Quaker spirits operate upon 
Quakers, and Moravian spirits upon Moravians ; the 
case would be similar with Arians, with Socinians, 
and other heretics. All spirits speaking with man 
are no other than such as have bqen men in the world, 
and were then of such a quality ; that this is the case 
hath been given me to know by repeated experience. 
And what is ridiculous, when man believes the Holy 
Spirit speaks with him, or operates upon him, the 
spirit also believes that he is the Holy Spirit. From 
these considerations, it is evident to what danger man 
is exposed who speaks with spirits, or who manifestly 
feels their operation. Man is ignorant of the quality 
of his own affection, whether it be good or evil, and 
with what other beings it is conjoined ; and if he is 
in the conceit of his own intelligence, his attendant 
spirits favor every thought which is thence derived : 
iii like manner, if any one is disposed to favor partic- 



SPIRITS COMTMTJNICATE WITH THETU LIKE. 97 

•ular principles, enkindled by a certain fire, which, 
hath place Vvdtli those who are not in truths from 
genuine affection : when a spirit from similar affection 
favors man's thoughts or prinqiples, then one leads 
the other, as the blind the blind, until both fall into 
the pit. The Pythonics formerly were of this descrip- 
tion, and likewise the magicians in Egypt and in 
Babel, who by reason of discourse with spirits, and 
of the operation of spirits felt manifestly in them- 
selves, were called wise : but by this the worship of 
God was converted into the worship of demons, and 
the church perished ; wherefore such communications 
were forbidden the sons of Israel under penalty of 
death." — ^^. Ex. 1182. 

With reference to this passage a recent writer * on 
the subject makes the following remarks : — 

" The spiritual manifestations, so prevalent and in- 
creasing for the last few years, are of four general 
varieties, and may be known as mesmerism, with its 
clairvoyance, and as exhibited by rapping, writing, 
and speaking mediums. Besides these there are sev- 
eral varieties of sorcery, prevailing not so much of 
late as a few years ago, though occasionally seen yet 
among some enthusiastic sects, where the power, not 
of the Holy Spirit, but of enthusiastic and fanatical 
spirits, is very manifest. In these latter I refer to 
the jerks and dancings among the Quakers ; the bark- 
ings, &c., of the so called great revival, in the begin- 
ning of the present century, in Kentucky ; and the 
fallings f and shoutings, and strange experiences, occa- 
sional instances of which are still to be found, in out 
of the way places, among certain sects ; very many 

* Rev. J. R. Hibbard, of Chicago, in his recent work " Necromancy, 
or Pseudo-Spiritualism." 



98 MODERN SPIRITUALISM. 

of which I have witnessed, if not produced, at a time 
when I was as ignorant of their origin and character 
as those Avho now consider them the special operations 
of the Holy Spirit. We shall pass over all these 
latter named, under the general head of sorceries, 
with the remark that they are from enthusiastic and 
fanatical spirits, excited by, and in their turn exciting, 
those who, to a certain extent innocently, because 
ignorantly, believe them to be the Holy Spirit, and 
who, just as ignorantly, engage in a machinery of 
means unwittingly to practise sorcery upon a large 
scale." 



II. Power of Spirits to communicate through writing 
and speaking Mediums. 

As Swedenborisr was let into a £C''eat variety of 
spiritual states that he might describe them, he says, 
with respect to this kind of revelation from the other 
world, — 

" The writing is so guided that not the least word 
can be written otherwise than it is. Sometimes, how- 
ever, it is more insensible, sometimes so sensible that 
the finger is conducted in the writing by a higher 
power, so that if the attempt were made to Avrite 
otherwise, it would be impossible ; and this not only 
with an adjoined perception of the subject, but even, 
what has again and again happened to me, without 
this perception, so that I was ignorant of the series 
of things until after they were written ; but this onli/ 
in very rare instances, and only for the sake of inform- 
ing us that revelations are made in this manner. 
TiiOse papers [r.lius written] iverc therefore dcsrroyed, 
because God Messiah was unwilling that it should 6e 



WRITING AND SPEAKING MEDIUMS. 99 

SO done.^' (Adversaria, 7167; N C. Repos. vol. v. 
p. 467.) In another place he says, " Spirits who 
are the souls of those who are dead as to the body, if 
they were permitted, could, through the man who 
speaks with them, but not through others, be as 
though they were entirely in the world, and indeed, 
in a manner so manifest that they could communicate 
their thoughts hy words through another man, and 
even hy letters, for they have sometimes directed my 
hand when writing, as though it were entirely their 
own, so that they thought that it was they themselves 
who were writing ; and if they were permitted they 
could write in their own peculiar style, which I know 
from some little expedience ; hut this is not permitted.'' 
— ^S. D. 557. Says Mr. Hibbard— 

" Here, almost a hundred years before these writing 
and speaking mediums appear, the Lord has warned 
the church and the world against them, by letting his 
prepared servant be operated upon in the same way, 
and then commanding him to destroy the papers thus 
written, because it was not his will that such things 
should be done." 

III. Power and Hahit of Spirits to deceive. 

" When spirits wished to instruct me concerning 
various things, there was scarcely any thing but what 
was false ; wherefore I was prohibited from believing 
any thing that they spake, nor was I permitted to 
infer any such thing as was proper to them." (^S'. D. 
1647.) " When spirits begin to speak with man, he 
must beware lest he believe them in any thing : things 
are fabricated by them and they lie ; for if they were 
permitted to tell what heaven is, and how things are 



100 MODERN SPIRITUALISM. 

in tlie heavens, they would tell so many lies, and in- 
deed with solemn affirmation, that man would be 
astonished ; wherefore when spirits were speaking I 
was not permitted to have faith in the things which 
they related. For they are extremely fond of fabri- 
cating ; and when any subject of discourse is proposed, 
they think that they know it, and give their opinions 
one after another, one in one way and another in 
another, altogether as if they knew ; and if man then 
listens and believes, they press on and deceive in 
divers ways. For instance, if they were permitted to 
tell about things to come, about things unknown in 
the universal heaven, about all things whatsoever that 
man desires, yet [they would tell] all the things 
falsely, while from themselves : wherefore let man 
beware lest he believe them. On this account the 
state of speaking with spirits on this earth is most 
perilous, unless man be in true faith. They induce 
so strong a persuasion that it is the Lord Himself who 
commands, that men cannot but believe and obey." 
— S. D. 1622. Says Mr. Hibbard again— 

** In modern spiritual manifestations nothing is 
more common than for the spirits who communicate 
to say they are such or such a person, per.haps a de- 
parted friend, or relative, perhaps some great man, 
Washington, Franklin, or Swedenborg. We have 
some light concerning this in the following." " That 
spirits may be induced who represent another person : 
and the spirit, as also he who was known to the 
spirit, cannot know otherwise than that he ivas the 
same. This has many times been shown to me, that 
the spirits speaking with me did not know otherwise 
than that they were the men who were the subject of 
thought, neither did other spirits know otherwise ; as 



DECEPTIONS PRACTISED BY SPIRITS. 101 

jresterday and to-day some one known to me in life 
[was represented by one] who was so like him in all 
things which belong to him, so far as they were 
Icnown to me, that nothing was more like. Where- 
fore let those who speak with spirits beware lest they 
be deceived, when they say that they are those whom 
they know, and that they are dead. For there are 
genera and species of spirits of a like faculty ; and 
when similar things are called up in the memory of 
man, and are thus represented to them, they think 
that they are the same person. Then all the things 
are called forth from the memory that represented 
those persons, both the words, the speech, the tones, 
the gestures, and other things, besides that they are 
induced to speak thus when other spirits inspire 
them." {S, D. 2860, 2861.) Again: "There are 
others who induce upon themselves so dexterously the 
persons of others, that the deception can scarcely be 
detected." (S. D. 42TT.) " It is one of the wonders 
of another lite which scarce any one can believe, that, 
as soon as any spirit comes to another, and especially 
when he comes to man, he instantly knows his thoughts 
and his affections, and what he had been doing to that 
time, thus all his present state exactly as if he had 
been with him ever so lonj?. Such is the nature of 
communication." (^A. C. 5383.) " It was shown me 
to the life, in what manner spirits flow in with man : 
when they come to him they put on all things of his 
memory, thus all things which the man has learned 
and imbibed from infancy, and the spirits suppose 
these things to be their own ; thus they act, as it were, 
the part of man with man." — A. C. 6192. 

" How often do we hear of such an one having had 
a communication from his or her father or mother, or 
9* 



10.^ MODERN SPIRITUALISM. 

from their ] ttle child, or some friend or acquaintance 
in the other world ! These extracts show how much 
such persons are [liable to be] deceived. Some other 
spirit, a lying spirit, flows into their memory, and 
there puts on all they know or ever knew about their 
father, mother, brother, sister, or little child, friend or 
acquaintance, and raps, or writes, or speaks, just as 
the persons asking the communication might expect 
those they are thinking of to do, imitating the tones, 
gestures, handwriting, &c., and telling all or any thing 
those persons themselves could tell. So that it is no 
sign that a spirit is the one he professes to be, because 
he appears to be, or because he tells what no one knew 
but the questioner."* 

IV. Concerning some who desire to he familial 

Spirits. 

" An account of the hell of the men of the Ancient 
Church. The hells of the men of the Noetic or An- 
cient Church for the most part consist of magicians, 
who have huts and places of entertainment scattered 
up and down in the desert. They wander about there 
with staves of various forms in their hands, some of 
which are stained with necromantic juices : by these, 
as in former times, they still exercise their arts, which 
are affected by the abuse of correspondences, by fan- 
tasies, by persuasive appearances, which formerly gave 
birth to miraculous faith and miraculous works, and 
also by exorcism, incantation, fascination, and sorcery, 
and several other infernal contrivances, whereby they 
present illusory appearances as if they were real. 
TIjeir hearts' greatest delight is to utter prophecies and 

* J. R. Hibbard. 



SPIRITS WHO WISH TO RETURN TO THIS WORLD. 103 

prognostications, and to he familiar spirits. These 
chiefly have given rise to the various enthusiasms of 
the Christian world. — Cor. 45. 



V. Concerning some who desire to return into the 
World. 

" There are very many spirits at this day who are 
desirous to not only flow into man's thoughts and 
aftections, but also into his speech and actions, thus 
even into his corporeals ; to flow into man's bodily 
things is to obsess him. The spirits who will and in- 
tend this are those who, in the life of the body, had 
been adulterers, that is, who had perceived delight in 
adulteries and persuaded themselves that they were 
lawful ; and also those who had been cruel ; the 
reason is, because both the former and the latter are 
corporeal and sensual above others, and have rejected 
from themselves all things concerning heaven, by at- 
tributing all things to nature, and nothing to the 
Divine ; thus they have closed up interior things to 
themselves, and have opened external things ; and 
because in the world they Avere solely in the love of 
these things, therefore in the other life they are in 
the desire of returning into them through man by 
obsessing him." — A. C. 5990. 

VI. Great Danger attending the being led by Spirits. 

^'But to speak with spirits at this day is seldom 
given, since it is dangerous ; for then the spirits know 
that they are with man, which otherwise they do not 
know ; and evil spirits are such that they hold man 
in deadly hatred and desire nothing more than to 



104 . ' MODERN SPIRITUALISM. 

destroy him both as to soul and body, which also is 
done with those who have indulged much in fantasies, 
£0 that they have removed from themselves the de- 
lights suitable to the natural man. Some also, who 
lead a solitary life, sometimes hear spirits speaking 
with them, and without danger ; but the spirits with 
them are at intervals removed by the Lord, lest they 
should know that they are with man : for most spirits 
do not know that there is any other world than that 
in whi'ch they are ; thus also they do not know that 
there are men elsewhere ; wherefore it is not lawful 
for a man to speak in turn with them, for if he should 
they would know it. Those who think much on reli- 
gious subjects, and are so intent upon them as to see 
them as it were inwardly in themselves, also begin to 
hear spirits speaking with them : for the things of 
religion, whatever they are, when man from himself 
dwells upon them, and does not modify them by the 
various things which are of use in the world, go inte- 
riorly, and there subsist, and occupy the whole spirit 
of the man, and enter the spiritual world, and move 
the spirits who are there ; but such persons are vision- 
aries and enthusiasts, and whatever spirit they hear 
they believe to be the Holy Spirit, when yet they are 
enthusiastic spirits. Those Avho are such see falses 
as truths, and because they see them, they persuade 
themselves, and likewise persuade those with whom 
they flow in." — jff. H, 249. 

Are not these warnings strikingly applicable to the 
circumstances of the times ? Do we not now see a 
wide spread manifestation of spiritual intercourse 
which had no existence in Swendenborg's day ? And 
do not men now get from spirits the kind of replies 



SWEDEXBORG FORESTALLS SPIRITUALISM. 105 

and the kind of information wliich he foretold they 
would get ? Spirits do not always give men just that 
information which they had before expected to receive, 
but they always give them something which is in ac- 
cordance with their ruling inclinations and desires, 
and something through which they may gain an influ- 
ence over them, and so induce them finally to believe 
whatsoever they communicate to them. Do we not 
see in the results attending these modern manifesta- 
tions almost innumerable instances in which the sj^irits 
acquire a power of persuasion over the minds of their 
subjects that is all but irresistible — Cases in which it 
seems, in the language of one of the above extracts, 
that the man " cannot but believe and obey " ? 

It is impossible to do justice to this branch of our 
subject, and bring fairly into view the entire scope of 
Swedenborg's teachings in this respect, exhibiting in 
full the complete manner in which he preoccupies and 
explains the whole ground in question, without going 
far beyond any reasonable limits in the copiousness of 
our extracts. We should need at least a good sized 
octavo volume to quote all that he has written bearing 
on this subject ; and another one, or more, in which 
to elucidate and confirm their application. All we can 
hope to do in a few lectures is to give men a slight 
foretaste of the quality of these revelations, and point 
them to the writings in which they are contained. 

He was himself let into the various spiritual states 
in order that he might describe them from experience, 
and so put them on record for the future instruction 
and use of the church and of men. Hence we find 
in his writings accounts of the various ways in which 
spirits operate to produce their effects, the manner in 
which they fiow ii with man and possess themselves 



106 MODERN SPIRITUALISM. 

of his I Dwers, and the various abnormal states into 
which man himself may be brought — such as the 
different degrees of the mesmeric sleep, the state of 
trance, and the sensations experienced on passing out 
of the natural body. 

He uncovers, too, all the machinations of evil 
spirits in the other lite ; exposes the innumerable arts 
which they practise for deceiving men ; how many 
things they will feign, for the purpose of leading them 
astray ; how much seeming goodness or apparent 
piety they will sometimes assume, in order to gain an 
influence over their minds ; and how many true dis- 
closures they will make in regard to minor things, that 
they may inspire a confidence that the falsities which 
they utter about important things are true also. 

One point to which we desire particularly to call 
attention in all this is the fact that all these disclosures, 
instructions, and warnings in regard to this matter 
were providentially given he forehand. They were 
put on record by a man claiming to be a divinely com- 
missioned seer, a century before they were actually 
required for practical use, in an age in which the 
church, so far as could be discerned by men, had no 
special need of them, and before the circumstances to 
which they more particularly refer had begun to arise. 
This, of itself, is, we think, a very powerful consid- 
eration in favor of the divine origin of his mission, 
and of the New .Church revelation. 

With respect to the future history of these modern 
manifestations, we may, perhaps, be allowed in this 
connection to make a passing remark, which will be 
of the nature of a conjecture. 

It will be remembered that we have already alluded 
to the diverse (Qualities of these rommunications ; to 



SPIRITUALISM WILL BECOME DIVIDED. 107 

the fact that while some of them were comparatively 
good, and imbodied a considerable degree of trutn, 
others were extremely evil, teaching a large amount 
of folly and falsehood. It is our opinion that these 
latter cbaractei'istics will continue to increase and be- 
come more and more decidedly marked as spiritual- 
ism advances. It will be discovered ere long by the 
sincere and truth-loving consulters of the mediums 
that there are evil spirits in the other world, as well as 
good ones ; that that world abounds in deceivers and 
liars ; that many subtleties are put forth by the spirits, 
which, though at first having all the appearance and 
plausibility of truth, are yet founded in fallacy, and 
lead to persuasions that are perniciously false. In 
this way we think there must ultimately be produced 
a division among spiritualists. Those who retain a 
respect for the sacred Scriptures, and an affection for 
genuine religious, spiritual, and moral truth, will be 
gradually led to separate themselves from those who 
take a different course — from those who throw aside 
the revelations of the Bible as of no account, who be- 
lieve that there is no real evil in the universe, that all 
is one great progression towards good, and place full 
confidence in and reliance upon whatever the spirits 
they are in communication with have a mind to tell 
them. 

It is also our belief that when such a separation 
does take place between spiritualists, the communica- 
tions which are received by those who are religiously 
inclined will be no more sought, and that their vota- 
ries will gradually be led nearer and nearer to the 
truths of the New Jerusalem ; while, on the other 
hand, those that are received by the opposite circles 
will tend more and more downvrard, and finally end 



108 MODERN SPIRITUALISM. 

in what was anciently meant by sorcery, magic, and 
witchcraft, or necromancy. 

In the seventh chapter of the Gospel of Matthew 
we read concerning the two ways — a narrow way 
which leadeth unto life, and a broad way that leadeth 
to destruction. These ways are, of course, spiritual, 
and all men are daily travelling in one or the other 
of them. All are, by the continual habits of their 
lives, betoming, on the one hand, less selfish, and there- 
fore wiser and better, or, on the other hand, more 
selfish, and therefore more evil and more in love with 
the false. Hence the many who at this day suppose 
and teach that there is but one spiritual way, that the 
growth of mind is only upward, that every person, by 
a route more or less direct or more or less circuitous, 
is all the while becoming better and wiser, do not 
allow themselves to be guided by the light of this 
divine truth; and on a careful examination, their sup- 
position will be discovered to be a most grievous fal- 
lacy, infused by evil spirits for the very purpose of 
lulling men into a fatal feeling of security in regard 
to their spiritual condition. The belief is one which 
strongly induces a state of spiritual sleep, giving an 
impression that our progress is at all events being 
worked out, however we may continue to live ; thus 
withdrawing our minds from any active or vigorous 
opposition to our own evil inclinations, and deceiving 
us into a contentment with our present impure and 
selfish states of affection, under a general impression 
that all w411 come out right for us at last. 

Viewed from a sound philosophy and in genuine 
light, the progress of the human spirit will be seen 
to be not always in one direction. The two opening 



THE TWO OPPOSITE WAYS. 109 

lines of development diverge from each other from the 
very start, and at length bend away into two exactly 
opposite terminations. That there is a progress in 
evil as well as in good, in folly as well as in wisdom, 
a successive degradation as well as a successive eleva- 
tion of soul, a progress downwards as well as a prog- 
ress upwards, a growth of spiritual disease as well as 
a growth of spiritual health, and that these two kinds 
of development and progress result from the constitu- 
tional laws of our being, is too obvious a fact, one too 
fully imaged every where in nature, and one too 
broadly written out on every page of the world's his- 
tory, on every present state of human society, and on 
every individual experience, to be long seriously called 
in question by the truly rational and in-quiring mind. 

Some acorns, owing to defects in their organization, 
produce only gnarled and crabbed oaks, unfit for the 
ordinary uses of timber ; some rosebuds have worms 
in them ; and some men, when they pass out of this 
world, carry with them a ruling love for what is evil 
wrapped up in the imperishable folds of their spirit. 
At the separation called death the spirit leaves the 
body forever behind, never more to return to it, and 
enters at once upon the career of its eternal existence. 
There is no law in the universe that is retrogressive 
in its action ; no process in nature ever moves back- 
ward ; the fruit never returns to its flower, nor old 
age to youth ; the plant never goes back and becomes 
a seed, nor an oak an acorn, the beast an embryo, nor 
ihe bird an egg. So, neither does the immortal spirit, 
after having once in the order of nature shuffled off 
its bodily coil, ever return hither to take it up. As 
no departed spirit ever returns to a material body, or 
ever possesses any body which it does not carry with 
10 



110 MODERN SPIRITUALISM. 

it when it goes away, so there are no spiii-ts in the 
other life who have not once been in material bodies, 
and lived a natural life in them, as we are now doing, 
if not upon this earth then upon some other. Every 
angel in heaven, every devil in hell, and every spirit 
in the world of spirits, midway between heaven and 
hell, has been a man, and lived a life in a natural 
body upon some one of the innumerable earthly globes 
there are in the universe. There are no races of 
beings created originally in a disimbodied state ; no 
original demons, no original angels ; no class of created 
intelligences with native constitution and endowment 
superior to man's. To reverse our illustration : as 
there is no fruit that ever returns to a flower, and no 
spirit that ever returns to a body, so there is no fruit 
that has not emerged from some flower, no rose that 
is not the expansion of a bud, no butterfly that has 
not been evolved from some creeping worm, nor a 
plant or an oak that did not come from a seed or an 
acorn. Every grown man has been an infant, every 
beast an embryo, every bird an e^^', and, as we before 
said, every angel and every devil a man. 

Here, then, we have opened out before us the two 
grand vistas of spiritual development and. spiritual 
destiny. Every place in the universe is open to man. 
No one so mean that he may not covet the best gifts 
and aspire to the highest ; and no one so high in tliis 
w^orld, or so secure, that he may not slide away from 
his level, and fall to the lowest. Along one way 
angelic influences beckon him on to the most exalted 
states of created existence - — the purest love, the 
largest culture, the profoundest bliss. Along the 
other, flushed malice inflicts its stab, secretive envy 
weaves its tangled web, pale avarice curves its spiue 



ORGANIC VITALITY OF SPIRITUAL LAWS. Ill 

and shuffles Its feet, and all tlie shapes of blight and 
deformity peep and mutter. 

In one direction the highest, holiest, most glorious 
temples in the universe are waiting to swing back 
upon their golden hinges their seven-leaved gates, and 
welcome every man and every woman who can sum- 
mon their inmates to the portals by the magnetic 
touch of a sympathetic affection. In the other direc- 
tion yawn the entrances to those dens — deeper and 
darker than any habitations of earth — where the 
malignant, the treacherous, and the vile open their 
creaking doors to birds of a similar feather. 

So far as we cherish within ourselves an actual love 
for what is good, and delight in the things pertaining 
to the Lord's kingdom, just so far we advance in the 
one direction ; while so far as we allow to operate in 
us a love for what is evil, false, and selfish, so far we 
advance in the other. The law which determines our 
destiny hereafter is not an arbitrary external regula- 
tion, or merely verbal commandment, but a vital, 
organific force constantly at work in the desires and 
affections of the spirit ; and is as self-executive and as 
precise in its adjustments, when it sinks the evil spirit 
to his place and elevates the good to his, as that law 
of gravitation by which the leaden plummet falls 
through the body of water, and the balloon of hydro- 
gen rises to the upper atmosphere. 

While we remain in this world we are left by our 
Creator in perfect moral freedom — in freedom to 
choose and follow either one of these two ways ; and 
when men are transferred to the other world their free- 
dom is not taken away. They there continue in the 
way upon which they have entered here. In this 
world a man pursues the evil way because he loves it 



112 MODERN SPIPvITUALISM. 

better than the opposite good ; and in that world, 
with the same freedom of choice, he will pursue it 
still for the same reason. His continual choice be- 
comes a confirmed and permanent state of the will, a 
fixed habit of m'nd ; and that which constitutes his 
very life's love is never changed to eternity. 



LECTURE V. 



REASONS FOR ACCEPTING THE REVELATIONS OF THE NEW 
JERUSALEM AS TRUTH. 



"Forever, O Jehovah, thy -word is established in heaven. Thy truth 
is unto all generations." — Psalm cxix. 89. 



In resuming the theme upon which we have been 
addressing you for several evenings past, and in carry- 
ing it forward to its completion on the present occa- 
sion, it may be useful to pause here a moment and 
briefly consider the ground which has been passed 
over. 

In the first place we endeavored to give some ac 
count of man's spiritual nature with reference to his 
future existence. We attempted to describe the mode 
in which the resurrection takes place after the death 
of the material body, the form and functions of the 
spiritual body, and to say something concerning the 
first state in which men find themselves after they pass 
out of this world. 

We then undertook to show something of the man- 
ner in which departed spirits continue to be associated 
with men here, and of the difierent methods in which 
10 * (113) 



114 MODERN SPIRITUALISM. 

men can become sensible of their presence, and receive 
communications from them. The manner in which 
the divine revelations that are recorded in the Scrip- 
tures Avere mad*^ was to some extent explained, as well 
as the method and character of that other kind of 
spiritual intercourse which is there spoken of. "VVe 
endeavored to show the difference between them, and 
confirmed our views of them, to a considerable extent, 
from the records of the Bible. We next proceeded 
to point out the distinction which exists between the 
church of the New Jerusalem and modern spiritual- 
ism ; assigning to the former the character of a 
divinely appointed revelation, and to the latter that 
of a series of miscellanepus communications from indi- 
vidual spirits. 

In our last lecture we proceeded farther, and ad- 
duced some of the reasons for admitting the truth of 
the superior claim which the New Church sets up, 
and for preferring the disclosures made through Swe- 
denborg before those coming from the modern medi- 
ums. The first consideration there brought forward 
was that the superiority of the claim itself, under ail 
the attendant circumstances in which it is made, is a 
strong prima facie evidence in favor of the superior 
character of Swedenborg's mission. The second argu- 
ment we adduced was drawn from the fact that Swe- 
denborg was a seer, and that having *•' his eyes open " 
into the other world, he needed not that spirits should 
testify to him concerning the state of things in their 
world, for he was enabled to observe them for him- 
self, and so could report them over to us in a more 
reliable form than when coming through unknown, 
miscellaneous, and contradictory spirits. 

The third reason s^iven was that the revelations 



RECAPITULATION. 115 

coming througli Swedenborg constitute a complete, 
self-consistent, and harmonious system, all the parts 
of which agree with all the other parts; while the 
communications of spiritualism present only a vast 
mass of heterogeneous, incongruous, and contradic- 
tory matter. 

The fourth consideration we ventured to advance 
was the relative extent of his disclosures as compared 
with those of spiritualism. And under this head we 
endeavored to give some idea of the vastly greater 
amount of real information concerning all the laws, 
conditions, and phenomena of the other life conveyed 
in the writings of Swedenborg than are contained in 
all other books put together, or than can be obtained 
from all other sources put together. 

The fifth thought we presented was the circumstance 
that the revelations of the New Church, coming a 
hundred years before them, completely forestall, over- 
look, and account for the phenomena and disclosures 
of spiritualism. Under this head we endeavored to 
show, to a limited extent, that these writings, while 
describing beforehand the general facts which have 
since occurred, contain, also, such admonitions and 
warnings in regard to the dangers attending that kind 
of intercourse as we should rationally expect to find 
in a divinely-accorded revealment. 

In the course we have thus pursued, it has been 
one object with us to bring into vicAv the fact that the 
New Jerusalem has somethinsf to ofier on these and 

o 

kindred subjects ; that it has been provided, from 
some source, with definite and rational doctrine on all 
points relating to man's future state and destiny ; that 
it is endowed with a kind of teaching on important 
subjects calculated to meet the wants of the times in 



116 MODERN spiritualism: 

a manner in which other theological systems are not 
prepared; and that the light it is enabled to cast 
over these mysterious questions points to it as pos- 
sessing qualities that fit it to become what it is di- 
vinely intended to be — the Christian church of the 
future. 

6. "V^e proceed next to the consideration of our 
sixth reason. The contents of the New Jerusalem 
revelation are based on the sacred Scripture. 

In this particular it is most diverse from spiritual- 
ism. It does not present itself in an attitude of antag- 
onism to the religious truth of the past. It does not 
array itself, as the latter does, against the teachings 
of holy writ, but conforms to them and confirms them. 
It takes up the former revelations divinely made, and 
carries them forward to completion. God has always 
provided that there should be a testimony to his truth 
in the world, shining with as clear and full a light as 
the intellectual eyes of the epoch were capable of 
bearing, and has continued to increase that light as 
often as the world's intelligence has passed on to a 
new plane. The system of the New Church, there- 
fore, comes before the world with the history of fifty 
centuries at its back. It comes as the latent born and 
the inheritor of the spiritual wealth of all the churches. 
It joins on organically upon that great tree of heavenly 
disclosure which the Lord planted early in our earth, 
and which, under his own guardian care and nurture, 
has all along been extending its growth through the 
ages. It clothes the sturdy branches of that tree, all 
over, with a fresh and living foliage of particular and 
definite truths, which derive all their vigor and beauty 
from the original sap that has forever circulated in the 
trunk. 



THE NEW JERUSALEM BASED ON SCRIPTURE. 117 

The light of this revelation fulfils the prophecies 
of those which have come before. It presents those 
very disclosures which the Scriptures so frequently 
teach us to look forward to and expect. Itself dis- 
tinctly foretold by name as a city that should one day 
descend out of heaven — a city that should be enlight- 
ened by a supernatural light — it unveils the mysteries 
that were hidden behind the symbolic curtain of the 
Apocalypse, exposes to our view the scenes of the Last 
Judgment — the Destruction of Babylon, the Casting 
Down of the Dragon, the Second Coming of the Lord, 
the Unsealing of the Book, the going forth of the 
White Horse, the End of the former Dispensation, 
and the commencement of the New Age. 

It explains the meaning of what has been revealed 
before ; removes from our minds the difficulties which 
surround many things in the old Scriptures by show- 
ing in what manner they are to be understood, and 
raises our respect for them by making known the 
nature and extent of their inspiration. Obscurities 
are cleared up, seeming contradictions harmonized, 
discrepancies accounted for, parables explained, pre- 
ceptive truths interiorly unfolded, and a flood of gen- 
uine rational light is thrown over all the cloudy ap- 
pearances of- the letter. The sacred Scripture is so 
clearly demonstrated to be really the word of God 
that it can be seen in intellectual Light by those who 
religiously study the writings. 

In one place Swedenborg says that what is repre- 
sented and signified in the internal sense by most of 
those things that are named in the letter " has hereto- 
fore been known to no one ; nor could it be known ; 
because the world, even the learned part of it, has 
•heretofore imagined that the historical portions of the 



118 MODERN SPIRITUALISM. 

"Word are merely histories, and infold nothing deeper. 
And although they have said that every iota is divine- 
ly inspired, still by this they meant no more than that 
such historical narratives were made known by reve- 
lation, and that certain tenets may be deduced from 
them appHcable to the doctrine of faith, and profita- 
ble to those who teach and to those who are taught ; 
as also that, in consequence of being divinely inspired, 
the narratives have a divine force on men's minds, and 
are operative of good above all other histories. Bat 
historical relations, considered in themselves, effect 
little towards man's amendment, nor any thing towards 
eternal life ; for in the ether life they are sunk in 
oblivion. Of what use, then, could it be to know 
(for instance) concerning Hagar, a servant maid, that 
she was given to Abram by Sarai ? or to know the 
history of Ishmael, or even that of Abram ? Nothing 
is necessary for souls, in order to their entering into 
heaven and enjoying bhss, that is, eternal life, but 
what has relation to the Lord, and is from the Lord. 
These are the things to communicate which the Word 
was given ; and these are the things which are con- 
tained in its interiors." 

" Inspiration," he says, '* implies that in all parts 
of the Word, even the most minute, as w^ell historical 
as others, are contained celestial things which are of 
love, or good, and spiritual things which are of faith, 
or truth, consequently, things divine. For what is 
inspired by the Lord descends from him through the 
angelic heaven, and thus through the world of spirits, 
till it reaches man, before whom it presents itself such 
as the Word is in the letter ; but it is altogether dif- 
ferent in its first origin. In heaven there is not any 
worldly history, but the whole [Word there] is repre- 



INSPIRATION OF THE SCRIPTURES. 119 

sentatlve of things divine, nor is any thing else there 
perceived, as may also be known from this, that the 
things which are there are unspeakable [in the lan- 
guage of men] ; wherefore, unless the historical por 
tions [of the Scripture" be representative of things 
divine, and be thus celestial, they cannot possibly be 
divinely inspired. What is the nature of the Word 
in the heavens can be known only from the internal 
sense ; for the internal sense is the Word of the Lord 
in the heavens." (That is, the internal sense is the 
sacred Scripture as it exists, and is read, ^nd per- 
ceived, and understood among the angels.) — A. C. 
1886, 1887. 

From the above remarks we gain some idea of the 
meaning of the first portion of our text, which says, 
" Forever, O Jehovah, thy Word is established in 
heaven." And this is what is meant w^hen it is said 
that the New Jerusalem descends out of heaven ; 
namely, that the mode in which the doctrines of the 
Word of God are understood in heaven is revealed to 
men, so that a new earth may be gradually formed 
here which shall correspond to the heavens, both in 
understanding and life, and that men may be freely led 
first to think, then to feel, and at length to act, like the 
angels. 

That the literal sense of the sacred Scripture is rep- 
resentative of such divine arcana as stated in the para- 
graph we have just cited, and that it is a receptacle, 
and thus a repository, of the celestial and spiritual 
things of the Lord, cannot be made clear to the appre- 
hension unless it be illustrated by numerous examples 
of interpretation — a process for which v/e have not 
the space; but is a thing w^iich can be rationally seen 



120 MODERN SPIRITUALISM. 

and confirmed tlie oftener the Word is read in the 
light of such explanations. 

To unfold and publish this interior sense of the 
Word was the great object of Swedenborg's mission. 
So important a dispensation is it in the divine economy 
that this sense should be known to men, and that by 
means of it the Word of God might be correctly un- 
derstood and interpreted in these latter times, that it 
is frequently made the subject of inspired prophecy. 
In the fifth chapter of the book of Eevelation the 
effect which the opening of this sense is destined to 
have upon the lives of spirits and men is represented 
by the opening of the book sealed with seven seals ; 
and in the nineteenth chapter of the Apocalypse this 
revealment is symbolized by the opening of heaven 
and the vision of the white horse. So great is the 
change which a knowledge and practice of the truth 
contained in the spiritual sense of the Word is to pro- 
duce in the religious history of the world, that its 
promulgation on the earth is spoken of in the New 
Testament Scriptures as being the second coming of 
the Lord. It is the only way in which his second 
coming will be perceived in the natural world, and 
the only medium he will use to introduce and perfect 
the latter day glory of his church. He comes now as 
the Word revealed. He makes himself known not 
only as the author and source of the Word, but as 
being the very truth of the Word, its soul or essence, 
its liglit and life. Hence we read in the prophecy 
already referred to that he who sat upon the horse is 
called Faithful and True, and in righteousness doth 
he judge and make war; and his name is called The 
Word of God. v 



EXPLANATIONS OF THE SCEIPTIRE NEEDED. 121 

That some higher UDderstaiiding of the sacred 
Scriptures, and some better interpretation of them 
than ib novv' in current use, is needed in the modern 
circumst:inces in which the church is placed seems to 
us quite evident. The church at large requires some 
further key to the meaniua^ of the divine oracles than 
she now possesses, both for her ow^n satisfaction and 
for her sojurity. She needs it in order that her own 
children and separated branches may come to some 
common agreement among themselves on fundamental 
doctrines. She needs it both for light and for life ; 
to correct the enthusiasms and delusions that arise in 
her ov/n pale from a misunderstanding of the declara- 
tions of prophecy ; to defend the Scriptures them- 
selves from the attacks of scientific objectors ; and to 
minister to the nev/ moral and philosophical require- 
ments of the human mind. 

Objections to the teachings and records of the 
Scriptures more numerous than ever before, presented 
from entirely new points of view, are gravely and 
persistently urged by naturalists, by spiritualists, by 
rationalists. And so far as the literal sense merely is 
concerned, many of these are rightly m-ged. With- 
out a different mode of interpreting than has hereto- 
fore prevailed, the rational decision must be in many 
instances against the old record and ir favor of the 
new discoveries. 

Now, in the New Church system all these diincul- 
ties are rationally met and explained. We here have 
all the freedom of thought, and more, v,^e have all the 
spiritual science, and more, all the deep philosophy of 
man and of nature, and more, all the vast fields of 
newly opened inquiry, and more, that are presented to 
the mind in spiritualism, in rationalism, or in any sys- 
11 



122 MODERN SPIRITUALISM. 

tern of philosophy. And in' addition to ail this we 
have a biblical science which breaks open the shell of 
divine truth, and lets forth its interior light, takes off 
the rind of the fruit, distributing the wholesome meat 
within for the nutriment of the nations. It preserves 
intact both the soul and the body of the former reve- 
lation, only clearing away and stripping off the heavy 
clothing of dogmas and fallacies and vain conceits 
with which the officious and speculating mind of the 
centuries has encumbered it. 

Now that a system fully providing for these wants of 
the church should present itself to the world in such an 
age as this, that it should have made its appearance at 
least half a century before the main exigencies had 
arisen, so that the books containing it might be generally 
distributed through Christendom, ready to take the new 
movement in its incipient stages, and rise into notice 
with it, shows that there is something particularly 
providential in it; and, connected with the claim it 
makes, is to our mind a very strong evidence in favor 
of its divine origin. 

A very common misconception which persons form 
on first approaching the system of the New Church, 
and hearing the docrine of a spiritual sense taught, is, 
that it is something that is to do away with the literal 
sense ; that it is an interpretation which is to be sub- 
stituted for the plain and direct meaning of the Scrip- 
tures. And the impression thus made upon many 
minds is, that this mode of understanding the Scrip- 
tures is without fixedness ; something unstable ; some- 
thing too figurative, and too far removed from common 
apprehension to be rendered practically useful. The 
feeling is, that by means of it the Scriptures are likely 
to be interpreted according to the imagination, the 



LITERAL SEN3E NOT IMPAIRED BY SPIRITUAL. 123 

meaning rendered indefinite, and the wliole mind be 
thrown into the realm of uncertainty in regard to it. 

As these various impressions are incorrect, it is 
therefore important that something should be done to 
remove them. 

The spiritual sense does not come to take the place 
of the literal sense ; it does not overthrow it ; does 
not destroy its authority ; it leaves the literal sense 
just as complete as it found it. The two senses are 
entirely distinct from each other. The one refers to 
visible things, to affairs and relations existing in this 
world ; the other refers to invisible things, to affairs 
and relations which exist in the spiritual world. The 
literal sense is designed for the use of men on earth, 
and the spiritual sense is for the angels in heaven. 
Men could not write a book which would be so 
adapted. All the powers of all the human intellects 
that ever existed, combined together, could not pro- 
duce a single page of such a work. Herein lies the 
reality of its divine origin and inspiration. Accord- 
ing to the divine law by which the universe is created 
natural things are so made that they symbolize and 
image forth spiritual things. Natural events so hap- 
pen and flow on that they correspond to and represent 
changes and varieties of spiritual state and experi- 
ence ; while circumstances and conditions exist in 
this world which correspond to states and circum- 
stances in the other world, and which, therefore, may 
be used to represent and describe them. This law of 
correspondence between the spiritual world and the 
natural is known in its origin and essence to the 
Creator alone ; it is a law and operation of his own 
mind and thought. He alone could first know the 
principles and the applications of this law, and there- 



IS4 MODERN SPiaiTUAXISM. 

fore he alone could utter a Word whicli, wliile it 
should be forever estahlished in heaven, would also 
serve for truth to all generations on earth. He alone 
could cause to be written a book which, while it 
should instruct, elevate, and guide men in the sacred 
truths of religion, should at the same time serve as a 
medium by which angels are instructed, enlightened, 
and perfected, with respect to the same themes. 

Now, in making known these things to the world, 
the New Church revelation does not impair the literal 
sense of the Word : men will still continue to under- 
stand the Scriptures naturally as heretofore. But let 
us glance a moment at some of the uses which are 
performed by the revelation of the fact we have set 
forth. In the first place, by it is shown the divinity 
of the Word. If we cannot ourselves get a full perr 
ception of the spiritual meaning, and -understand it as 
the angels do, yet we can here and there get a few 
glimpses of it, we can clearly see that the Scripture 
has more in it than we formerly supposed it had, and 
as it is far above our entire comprehension we can see 
that there is a superhuman element in it, we can 
clearly perceive that it is beyond the power of man to 
write such a book, and hence its divine origin and in- 
spiration will take a rational and firm hold on our 
minds. 

In the second place, the revelation of this great 
fact has the efifect to turn our minds in the right direc- 
tion. It points us the way in which all new and true 
light is to come. It withdraws our minds from the 
worldly modes of regarding and reading the Scrip- 
ture and elevates them towards the light that comes 
down from above. It enables men to begin and 
think a little as the angels do, and enables the aijgels 



THE LITERAL SENSE NEEDS TO BE EXPLAINED. 125 

to come nearer to men and assist them, as far as tliey 
are able, to understand tlie AVord better. Thus it 
makes it possible for men here, though at the very- 
foot of the ladder, to commence their heavenly edu- 
cation, and thereby go into the other world so much 
the better prepared to make rapid advances there. 

Thirdly, the spiritual sense throws a genuine light 
over the literal sense and enables us to iinderstand 
that better. This is the first great use which it per- 
forms for the church. The great need of the world 
at the present moment is to understand the meaning 
of the literal sense. This is the very sense which 
puzzles ail the commentators. It is the sense about 
the meaning of which all the controversies and di- 
visions in the Christian world occur. Instead of 
being every where plain and obvious it is the very 
thing which in innumerable instances is neither plain 
nor obvious. How many passages there are occurring 
in every part of the Scriptures upon which hardly 
any two commentators agree ; how many that - are 
made to mean one thing by Catholics and another 
thing by Protestants ; one thing by High Churchmen, 
another by Congregationalists ; one thing by Baptists, 
another by Pedo-Baptists ! Do not Trinitarians and 
Unitarians, Calvinists and Arminians, Supernatural- 
ists and nationalists, continually read their different 
and contradictory interpretations into the same texts ? 
Who, now, in the Christian world can tell with any 
certainty the meaning of one half of the literal sense 
of the Bible ? Where can be found a fixed, reliable, 
and satisfactory interpretation of the early chapters of 
Genesis, of the prophetical books of the Old Teota- 
ment, of the twenty-fourth chapter of Matthew, and 
of the whole book of Revelation ? Who in the Chiis- 
11* 



126 MODERN SPIRITUALISM. 

tlan world can tell any thing (otherwise than by con 
jecture) concerning the meaning of what is said in 
the literal sense of the Scriptures about the last 
things — about the resurrection, the end of the world, 
the millennium, the second coming of the Lord, the 
last judgment, the descent of the New Jerusalem ? 

We see, then, that it is precisely the literal or nat- 
ural sense of the Scriptures which at this day needs 
to be made plain. And this is one office which the 
New Jerusalem revelation performs. The light of 
the spiritual sense serves to fix and determine the 
meaning of doubtful or obscure passages of the natu- 
ral sense. It is in reality the understanding of the 
Word from the spiritual sense that is alone definite 
and fixed, while it is the understanding of the merely 
literal sense that is variable, floating, zndefinite and 
Infixed. 

As an illustration of this, take, for instance, the first 
clause of our text, — " Forever, O Jehovah, thy 
Word is established in heaven.''^ What meaning do 
these words convey to the ordinary understandhigs 
of men ? What definite fact do they describe to the 
mind of one who reads them in the light of the com- 
mon modes of interpretation? Take down the vol- 
umes of tvfenty commentators and you shall find as 
many different views or suggestions thrown out, and 
not one of them the ris^ht one. As a 2:eneral thim? 
the phrase will be considered as conveying a poetical 
figure, or an oriental hyperbole ; and the flu'ther you 
proceed in your investigations the more indefinite will 
the meaning of the passage become. To the mind 
of the New Churchman it describes a definite fact — 
one already referred to, namely, that the divine A\^ord, 
which men call the sacred Scripture, exists also in 



NEW CHURPH REVELATIONS. 127 

tlie heavens, and is in continual use tliere among tlie 
angels. This is the plain, natural sense of that pas- 
sage. The words simply and dh-ectly assert a definite 
fact, and by the light of the revelation of the spirit- 
ual sense we are enabled to point out distinctly what 
that fact is ; Avithout that light we could not so point 
it out. We have not here attempted to 023en to you 
the internal or angelic sense of this passage, but have 
only explained it according to its genuine literal 
sense. Take, as another illustration, the twenty-first 
chapter of Kevelation, where the descent of the New 
Jerusalem is described. We say that by the New 
Jerusalem is meant a New Church ; that by its de- 
scent out of heaven is meant that this church as to 
its doctrines is revealed from heaven ; and .that when 
it is said the tabernacle of God shall be with men, 
it is meant that this New Church from the Lord 
is to be established among men on the earth. 

This we give as the plain natural sense of these 
things. We do not here attempt to open the internal 
or truly angelic sense of this vision — the sense in 
which what is here written apphes to the regenera- 
tion of man ; we only point out the real, external, 
objective facts to which these passages refer in their 
genuine earthly or human sense. We simply tell 
you what the literal sense means; which we should 
not be able to do if it were not for the light which 
the spiritual sense of the Word affords. 

The same is true of the second coming of the 
Lord, the last judgment, and all the other events pre- 
dicted in the Apocalypse. Tiie revelations of this 
church give the angeli: sense of these various chap- 
ters, but they give also what the churches at present 
first need, the genuine meaning of the natural sense. 



128 MODEHN SPIRITUALISM. 

We miglit go through the Scriptures in this way, 
and from almost every chapter select something that 
would illustrate these views, some passage whith 
would show how the light of the spiritual sense every 
where illuminates the letter, making it clear, and how 
much this light is needed in order that the letter may 
be correctly understood. 

In order to be a New Churchman, therefore, in 
reading the Scriptures, it is not necessary for a man 
to attempt to climb up to something which he cannot 
understand. It is not necessary that he should at 
once enter into the spiritual sense as the angels do ; 
but only that he should read them in the light of the 
spiritual sense, and thus come to a correct understand- 
ing of their genuine meaning in their external or lit- 
eral sense. The real strength and power of the Word 
is in its literal sense ; without it there could be no 
spiritual sense ; it is the very foundation or base upon 
which the other is built. Thus, in a manner which 
we can but very faintly attempt to describe, does the 
Kew Church revelation grow, by a most vital and 
organic continuity, directly out of the divine revela- 
tion which has come before. 

And not only does it proceed forth from it in a nat- 
ural and orderly continuity, but the fundamental prin- 
ciples and doctrines upon which it is based are clearly 
taught in, and can be plainly and abundantly con- 
firmed from, the literal sense of the Scriptures. The 
annoancement of this fact we consider of sufficient 
importance at least to invite inquiry, and those who 
candidly investigate the claim find that it is so. They 
find that all the great leading doctrines of the New 
Church can be proven from the sacred Scriptures ; 
that they are indeed the real and only doctrines of the 



METHODS OF DIVINE REVELATIONS. 129 

Scriptures; and that in their light they can more 
phiinly and clearly perceive the actual meaning of 
what they read in the Word of God than they ever 
could before. 

Hence, as the sacred Scriptures are already an 
acknowledged authority to a large majority of minds 
in all Christiaii countries, this circumstance of itself 
affords another sufficient reason why we should repose 
with confidence on the truth of these revelations. 

7. We Avill now proceed to our seventh considera- 
tion. And the thought we shall here present relates 
to the fact that Swedenhorg malces known to us the 
various methods in ivhich the previous divine revela- 
tions have been cor/imunicated. 

This part of our subject would very naturally, per- 
haps, have fallen under the preceding consideration — 
that the New Church system is based on the sacred 
Scripture ; but as the specific points to which we refer 
are perfectly distinct in themselves, we have concluded 
to array them under a separate head. 

In our last lecture we referred to the circumstance 
that Swedenborg was let into the various abnormal spir- 
itual states — mesmeric, clairvoyant, somnambulic, and 
spiritualistic — that he might understand and describe 
them, so, now, what we wish to state is, that he was in 
like manner led into, and so enabled from experience 
to describe, all the various mental conditions induced 
upon men by the operation of the spirit of the Lord 
upon them, and the different psychological states in 
w^iiich the pi'ophets and other inspired men were when 
they received their revelations. 

He commences with an account of the primeval or 
most ancient people, when open intercourse with the 
s-piritual world was the common prerogative of all 



130 MODERN SPIRITUALISM. 

men, the state in which those were who are called 
Adam, when they heard the voice of the Lord God 
walking in the garden, when men conversed with 
angels and spirits as man with man. He explains 
what is meant in the narrative where it is said that 
Enoch walked with God, and was not, for that God 
took him. He shows in what manner the Lord com- 
municated with the Hebrew patriarchs, Abraham, 
Isaac, and Jacob. He describes those mysterious the- 
ophanies of the Old Testament, in which it is said 
that the angel of Jehovah appeared unto different 
persons, and that through that appearance Jehovah 
himself spake to them ; as in the case of Moses at the 
burning bush, of Joshua when he saw the armed war- 
rior, the captain of the host of Jehovah, on his en- 
trance into the land of Canaan ; and of the prophet 
Ezekiel, when he saw the appearance of Jehovah, as 
of a man, above upon the altar. He tells us how the 
Lord communicated with Moses during the journey 
through the wilderness, and how he appeared to him 
when it is said that he talked with him face to face, as 
a man talketh with a friend. He describes the man- 
ner in which and the means by which the .divine re- 
sponses were given by Urim and Thummim, when 
through that institution the Israelites went on im- 
portant occasions to make inquiries of Jehovah. He 
makes known the state of open vision — the state in 
which the prophets were when they received their 
revelations ; he distinguishes between the different 
kinds of visions, and explains the meaning of those 
representative ones which were slipwn to the prophets. 
He also mentions several Icjnds of vision differing 
from those which have been ordinarily experienced, 
and into which he was let only that he might know 



METHODS OF DIVINE RE\^LATiONS. 131 

the nature of them, and be able to put them on vec 
ord. So, alsOj he describes the state of divine trance. 
He was, too, permitted to relate with considerable 
minuteness what is meant by being in the spirit, as 
where St. John says that he was in the spirit on tne 
Lord's day ; what is meant by being taken out of the 
body, or to be in a state in which one does not know 
whether he be in the body or out of the body, as was 
the case on one occasion with St. Paul ; as well as the 
state in which Paul was when he was caught up to 
the third heaven, and heard and saw ineffable things, 
%yhich it was not lawful for the mouth of man to utter. 
He says that it was given him to know by lively 
experience the nature of what is meant where the 
being carried by the spirit into another place is spoken 
of, but this only twice or three times, to the intent 
that he might describe it. This phenomenon is sev- 
eral times referred to in the Bible, as in the eighteenth 
chapter of the first book of Kings, Avhere Obadiah is 
fearful lest the Spirit of the Lord should carry the 
prophet EHjah into another place, and so he not be 
found where he left him ; also in the second chapter 
of the second book of Kings, where the sons of the 
prophets proposed to Ehsha that fifty strong men 
should be sent in search of Elijah, lest, as they said, 
peradventure the Spirit of the Lord had taJcen him. up 
and cast him upon some mountain or into some valley. 
And again, in the third chapter of Ezekiel, where the 
prophet relates that he was lifted up by the spirit and 
carried away into Babylonia, and set dovvii tliere among 
the children of the captivity, by the river Chebar, and 
that he remained there seven days. As also in ihe 
eighth chapter of Acts, where it is related of Philip 
that after he had haptized the eunuch, as he carne ip 



132 MODERN SPIRITUALISM. 

out of the water the Spirit of the Lord caught away 
Philip, and the eunuch saw him no more ; but it is 
afterwards said that Philip was found at Azotus. 

The phenomena of dreams are also explained, both 
the ordinary and the extraordinary, with the intent of 
causing to be understood the nature of those which 
are sometimes employed as the mediums of communi- 
cating important warnings or divine instruction to 
men ; as was the case with Joseph, both in Canaan 
and in Egypt, with King Solomon and Daniel the 
prophet, as well as with Joseph the husband of Mary, 
and many others who are mentioned both in the Old 
and New Testaments. It is told in Avhat manner 
angels flow in and operate to cause such dreams. 

We also learn from these writings the various cir- 
cumstances connected with the temptations which our 
Lord endured as to, his human nature while he was in 
the world ; how he was connected and associated with 
the beings of the other world ; how evil spirits came 
to him and assaulted him ; how they endeavored to 
aiiect, to operate upon, and to destroy him, and how 
he continually affected, operated upon, and discom- 
fited them ; how the departed spirits of good men 
were at times in company with him, and how angels 
came and ministered unto him. The different kinds 
and degrees of divine inspiration are discriminated 
and pointed out, as well as the various styles in which 
the diiTerent parts of the Bible are written. Thus the 
parts written by Moses differ in style from those com- 
posed by David, and the psychological state of those 
who had pro2)hetic visions v/as very diverse from that 
of those persons who composed only inspired histo- 
ries ; while the divine influence which rested upon the 
minds of Paul and of the other authors of the apos- 



MORAL QUALITY OF THESE REVELATIONS. 183 

tolical epistles was, again, unlike ^hat which was en- 
joyed by the other classes to which we have referred. 

In short, we may affirm, in conclusion, that all the 
spu'itual phenomena connected with the revelation of 
the sacred Scriptures are in this revelation clearly, 
rationally, and satisfactorily explained. This is a 
feature which neither spiritualism nor any other sys- 
tem now before the world possesses to any distinguish- 
ing degree. We cannot help regarding it as a some- 
what important feature, one which affords a peculiar 
and striking consideration in favor of the New Church 
system. 

8. In the eighth and last place we adduce the moral 
quality of these revelations. 

It is agreed on all hands by Christian writers that 
the great and paramount p)roof of the divinity of the 
Christian religion is its internal quality — the pure 
and heavenly character of its moral teachings. This 
is almost universally considered the very hinging 
point in the evidences of Christianity ; and it is often 
alleged that no dispensation of mere outward, physical 
m-iracles, however stupendous, would be sufficient to 
authenticate the truth of a system which taught what 
is rationally seen to be wrong, or whose morality was 
impure ; in other words which did not possess the 
distinguishing characteristic we have already pointed 
out. 

This we consider solid ground. And it is accord- 
ing to the criterion furnished by this rule that the 
New Church system is to be explored and judged of 
No one can enter upon the study of the 'Ne\Y Church 
M'ritiugs without being forcibly struck with this \y\. 
portant feature of their character. Another has well 
said that " a deep and solemn earnestness pervades 
12 



134 MODERN SPIRITUAL .M. 

every portion " of our author's rrks. '^ One may 
search through the twenty thousanu pages of his theo- 
logical writings, and not find a single passage de- 
signed to excite mirth or laughter," or calculated to 
awaken any impure or unholy emotion. All is seri- 
ous, solemn, earnest, truthful. The moral atmosphere 
IS every where calm, pure, and serene. The mind is 
continually led by a gentle and rational influence, 
withdrawing it from evil and bending it to good, ele- 
vating it from earth and pointing it towards heaven. 
The single aim of the wdiole system is to make men 
better ; to withhold them from depraved affections, 
and bring them under the influence of heavenly affec- 
tions ; to withdraw their thoughts from the shade of 
false persuasions, and introduce them into the full 
light of spiritual truth ; to bring them out from under 
the dominion of worldly lusts, of natural passions 
and loves, and of selfish desires and ends of life, and 
place them more and more under the rule and order 
of the Lord's kingdom, under obedience to his divine 
influences, and under the sway and control of holy 
love, of renewed emotions and unselfish desires. 

The very fact that so great a prominence is given 
in the system to the s]piriiual sense of the Word shows 
that the chief aim is to awaken into life the religious 
experience of men, to strengthen its hold upon the 
character, to render it more interior, to c,irry it for- 
ward to a higher degree of development, and make it 
permanently abiding. 

To effect this end the nature and essence of evil are 
plainly pointed out. We are shown the origin from 
which all evil comes, and wherein it consists. Its 
malignity, its intensity, and its excessive direfulness 
are held up in a stioug and clear rational Ifslit. Tiie 



NEW CHURCH AND SPIRITUALISM CONTRASTED. 135 

many hidden and insidious ways in which it at first 
besets, then invades, and finally enthrones itself in 
the human heart are most surprisingly expounded ; 
while the awful results to which it leads hereafter, the 
thick mental darkness, the insane persuasions, and the 
deep and lasting misery with which it covers men in 
the other life, are laid open in a manner altogether 
surpassing the information given on the same subjects 
in the literal sense of the sacred Scriptures, and sur- 
passing the powers of the human imagination before- 
hand to conceive. 

Contrast this characteristic of the New Church sys- 
tem with what is found predominant in most of the 
teachings which flow in through spiritualism, in which 
the real direfulness of evil is almost always over- 
looked, and for the most part expressly denied ; in 
which Avicked depravities and wrong states of the 
human will are characterized as harmless eccentrici- 
ties, or held to be only lower forms of undeveloped 
good. 

In the teachings of the New Church the various 
wa.ys in which evil may be avoided, in the acts, in 
the thoughts, and in the heart, are openly manifested ; 
how its influences may be withstood, its seeds uprooted 
from the aflections, and itself cast out of the mind 
and put away. How the opposite good states of mind 
are to be acquired is also taught ; how aflections of 
genuine spiritual love may be induced to flow in and 
occupy the places formerly filled with evil. The 
spiritual regeneration of man is every where the one 
grand theme. The divine precepts of the Word of 
God, opened according to their internal sense, are 
made to apply to the cleansing and purifying of the 
interior life in a manner in which they could not be 



ISO MODERN SPIRITUALISM. 

made to do in tJieir merely literal sense. AVe are 
continually pointed forward to higher and still higher 
attainments in the regenerate life ; and the most ele- 
vated rounds of the heavenly ladder are brought dis- 
tinctly into Tiew. The literal language of the law is. 
Thou shcilt love thy neighbor as thyself; but from 
these revelations accompanying the spiritual sense of 
the ^Vord we learn that the angels in their world 
understand this to mean that they are to love their 
neighbor better than themselves ; and we here read, 
too, concerning those celestial beings dwelling nearest 
the eternal throne, who have advanced so far in holy 
life as heartily to obey this precept to that degree, 
and who now continually live loving the neighbor 
better than themselves. 

With respect to the quality of its moral influences, 
therefore, and the depth of the spiritual purity it 
enjoins, the New Jerusalem most completely vindi- 
cates to itself the very highest claim upon our faith 
and reception. As, in regard to the general truths of 
revelation, the new dispensation takes up the line 
where the former dispensation dropped it, and carries 
it forward into a further field of development, so, too, 
in regard to the application of divine truth to the 
sanctiiication of the inward life, does the spiritual 
sense of the Word take up the line of Christian expe- 
rience at the point where the literal sense leaves it, 
and carry it forward into the fields of angelic and 
heavenly attainment. 

And is not this what Ave ought to expect? How 
could it be otherwise with the heaven-descended city ? 
For the divine motto written over her entrance is, 
'^Blessed are they that do his commandments that they 
may have right to the tree of lifej and may enter in 



CONCLUSION. 13T 

through the gates into the city.^^ And, again, we read 
the inspired declaration in regard to her : — "And 
ihere shall in no wise enter into it any thing that de- 
Jileth, neither whatsoever worlceth ahomination, or 
maketh a lie ; hut they which are written in the Lamb's 
hook of life." 

We have now finished what we purposed to say in 
regard to modern spiritualism, and have closed also 
our enumeration of reasons in favor of the revelations 
given through Emanuel Swedenborg. The distinc- 
tion and some of the differences between the two 
have, we trust, been made sufficiently apparent. We 
are not without hope, too, that several difficulties have 
been rationally cleared av/ay from before some inquir- 
ing minds, and a lighted avenue opened before them 
along which they can fearlessly and conscientiously 
pass at least to a candid and thorough examination of 
the doctrines, if not at once to a full and complete 
reception. 

They Avill be found to contain every thing that all 
the divine revelations which have come before them 
contain, together with much that never has been made 
knov/n before. No loss, therefore, can be sustained 
by their reception. Whatever of truth there may be 
in the literal sense of the Scriptures the New Church 
lias it. all, for she has all the Scriptures. She destroys 
nothing, she rejects nothing. Whatever of good may 
have been revealed before, or is now contained in the 
old, she loses not, she accepts it all. She treasures 
up every thing good and true which the entire past 
has to Oiler, and only adds to -them those newer and 
richer treasuj-es of light and knowledge which have 
descended to lier, as her birthright, from above. 
12* 



APPENDIX 



[Note to tlie remarks at tlw hotto7n of page 43 and top of 44,] 

"We regard tlie demoniacal possessions mentioned in the Gos- 
pel as literally real ; and presume the fact of the great change 
in respect to them wronght by our Lord's advent will not be 
generally questioned. Their prevalence distinctly appears to 
have been broken up, and their occurrence reduced to a fev/- 
sporadic instances, which no doubt may be said to hav^e con- 
tinued down to our own times. 

With respect to the oracles, it is true that the authority of 
some of them began to decline before the coming of tlie Lord. 
But after His advent the change certainly was more marked 
and rapid. Eusebius refers to tins circumstance, as well known 
in his day, and attributes it to the advent of tlie Messiah, main- 
taining that He had when on earth sent the responding demons 
away. A similar view was maintained by other early Christian 
writers, and for several centuries it is alleged to have been tlie 
current Christian belief Ennemoser (Hist. Magic, Vol. I., pp. 
433, 434) says, " This idea was strengthened by some occasional 
answers of' tlie oracles themselves, and, among others, Por- 
phyrins received this response : ' The voice comes no longer to 
tlie priestess ; she is condemned to a long silence.'" To Au- 
gustus, too, Vvho, according to Suidas and Nicephorus, sent to 
the oracle to inquire what successor he should have, it was 
answered : " The Hebrew child, whom all the gods obey, drives 
me hence." 

Ennemoser still believes, however, that the oracles did not 
cease with Christ, as we find frequent mention made of them 
afterward. This is undoubtedly true ; they continued for some 
time to be consulted. But the great fact remains, as held by 
the early Christians, and they were living in the times to be- 
hold it, and could not have maintained it in the face of the Pa- 
gan world if it had not been true — that they very rapidly sank 
into disrepute, and in no great length of time, certainly by the 
time of Constantine, had disappeared altogeiher, is clear, un- 
less the scattered attempts to seek communications from the 
other world, which we believe have existed in all ages, can be 
called " oracles." 

See also the articles on the subject in Chambers' and in the 
New American Encjclopedias. 



AA.t.tA.tA^AA.l.tAAAAA.tAAAAAA.tAAAAAA^AA^AAAAAAAAA^AAA^AAAAAAAAAAAA, 



ON 



THE DANGERS 



MODERN SPIRITUALISM. 



WILLIAM bMiAYDEN, 

VmBTBR 01" THB KBW JERUSALEM AT PORTLAND, MAIKB. 



FOURTH EDITION, REVISED. 



NEW YORK: 

PUBLISHED BY THE 

NEW CHURCH TRACT SOCIETY, 

20 COOPER UNION. 

1870. 



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THEOLOGICAL WORKS 

OF 

EMANUEL SWEDENBORGr. 



HEAVEN AND HELL 1 vol., 12mo. 

This work unfolds the laws of the Spiritual World, describes the condi- 
tion of both good and evil spirits, the cause and nature of their joys and 
'ionows, their an'aiigement into i<ocietiee, tl\eir occupation, habitations, and 
iiie scenery which surrounds them ; presenting altogether a rational and 
complote system of Pneumatology in perfect harmony with the teachings 
of tlie Holy Scriptures. 

THE TRUE CHRISTL^N RELIGION 1 vol., 8vo. 

This work contaius a full and comprehensive statement of the Theology 
of the New Church in all its branches. It is a complete body of New Church 
Divinity, and the best work for those to study who desire to master the log- 
ical system of its doctrines from bcgiuninu- to end in the shortest space of 
time. The author begins by demonstratin;^ tlie existence and unity of God, 
and the nature of the Divine Trinity in tho one perton of the Lord Jeeus 
Christ, and from this central point proceeds to treat of every subject of in- 
terest to the religious man. 

THE DIVINE PROVIDENCE 1 vol., 12mo. 

This work treats of the nature and operations of the Divine Providence, 
and unfolds the laws of order accordin^to which the Lord's moral govern- 
ment is regulated. It shows that the Divine Providence has for an end a 
lieaven of angels from the human race ; that it works, not at random, but ac- 
cording to certain invariable Laws which are here disclosed ; that it is uni- 
versal, extending to the least things as well as to the neatest ; that in all it 
does, it has respect to what is eternal with man, aucl to things temporary 
only for the sake of what is eternal; tliat the Lord can not act against the 
Laws of his Providence, because to act against them would be to al^t ao;ainst 
bis Divine Love and his Divine Wisdom, consequently against Himselt. 

ARCANA CCELESTIA 12 vols., 8vo. 

This work is a full exposition of the internal or spiritual sense, according 
to tlie law of correspondences, of the books of Genesis and Exodus. It 
gives a clear and rational explanation of the history of the creation and fall 
of man— showing what is symbolized by the garden of Eden and the agency 
of the serpent in seducing Adam and Eve. It also explains the nature of 
the deluge; the true import of the lives of the Patriarchs and their chil- 
dren ; the meaning of the rituals of the Jewish religion, its sacrifices and 
observances, and, in general, traces tlie foreshadowing through both books 
of the incarnation and the glorification of the Lord Jesus Christ. 

THE APOCALYPSE REVEALED 3 vols., 8vo. 

This work bears the same relation to the book of Revelation that the Ar- 
cana Coelestia does to Genesis and Exodus. It gives a rational, consistent, 
nm\ coherent meaning to this Book, rendering plain and luminous what be- 
fore has been confessedly unintelligible and dark. 

Besides these there are many short treatises, among the most important 
of which are— 

The Last Judgment ; The New Jerusalem and Its Heavenxy Doc- 
trine ; The Fouk Leading Doctrines op the New Church — The Doc- 
trine op the Lord, Sacred Scriptures, Faith, and the Doctrine op 
Lipe. 

The above books are sold at a reasonable price, and, with all the works 
relating to the New Church, can be had at No. 20 Cooper Union, New 
York, 



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